You're a DND/PF Wizard in the Dresdenverse, what now?

[Xar Zarath]

So you become a Wizard as per DND 3.5e or PF(your choice) straight vanilla 20th level Wizard. What would be your overarching goal? Take over the Black Council? Rule the world? Start your own supernatural PI?


*You have the appropriate WBL in raw currency or magic items your choice.

*Spells that can take you to other planes as per DND/PF cosmology still works,but those same spells can reach the Nevernever. Its just that when you return to the Prime plane, it will be dresden prime.

*You cannot learn dresdenverse magic but by that same reasoning they cannot learn yours. Their magic still obeys their laws, your magic doesnt, e.g Laws of Magic dont affect you.

*When you appear in dresdenverse, you are only equipped with basic knowledge on the modern world but no more. The supernatural and such power groups would have to be garnered out conventionally with magic or otherwise

*If you operate at max competency, assume the same of the dresdenverse, especially the more powerful players.

[GrayDeath]

Hmmmm, depends heavily on WHEN I arrive.

Assuming its in a more peaceful time, use divinaton to find out if there are other wizards, visit them, show that the Merlin himself is at most a third of my level in Power and Versatility, but dont actually take over the White (Socks^^) Council, because that would be too much work. As I am a more chaotic good guy, tell them to tone down their "Behead first, ivnestigate later" methods, or they would have to face me.

Then probably find and "bind" various supernatural Powerhouses, just to make sure they dont trouble me.

Be "Lord High Wizard". :)


Assuming its later on, and mayhap in the middle of a big conflict, show who`s boss to ... just about anybody partaking, really.
And likely eliminate a few factions, intentionally or no.




Do we continue to level btw?

[Arael666]

I'm not familiar with dresdenverse, could you point where I could learn about it?

[khadgar567]

mainly in the books and for all the power i get as PF wizard i prefer my golden goose combo of white court wizard thanks. as chaotic as dresden wizards can get they are lot more flexable then you. plus you are not powerful then any of the true big wigs of dresden we got marcone, summer and winter courts of fey. order of blackend denarious. hellhound kinclaid, blackstaff, archive( dont bother to have a spell book the moment she puts two plus two together you are deader then dead.) white jade and black court vamps, dresden himself, ferovax, odin himself erkling and the wild hunt not the witcher kind.
well thanks but no thanks i keep vote on dresden side magic.

[GrayDeath]

mainly in the books and for all the power i get as PF wizard i prefer my golden goose combo of white court wizard thanks. as chaotic as dresden wizards can get they are lot more flexable then you. plus you are not powerful then any of the true big wigs of dresden we got marcone, summer and winter courts of fey. order of blackend denarious. hellhound kinclaid, blackstaff, archive( dont bother to have a spell book the moment she puts two plus two together you are deader then dead.) white jade and black court vamps, dresden himself, ferovax, odin himself erkling and the wild hunt not the witcher kind.
well thanks but no thanks i keep vote on dresden side magic.

Mobsters, even with a bound Valkyrie, are no threat to a full D&D Wizard. The Courts cannot attack "Mortals" (as one is as human Wizard) without being provoked and have their own problems.
The Order of the Blackened Denarius have some really cool shapeshifting, but are at most equal to a CR 13-15 D&D Demon, and what a well played Wizard does to them is well known.

The Blackstaff is roughly a Level 12 Sorcerer at best while he has the Staff. So yeah, no.

The Archive, now I`ll give you that she will know exactly which Spells I ahve and is SCARLY flexible (but as Magic cannot be learned cross universe, that still leaves her less powerful than me, and in the body of a small child to boot). But yeah, go and make nice with her SAP.

The Former Gods are jsut that, no longer divine and hence outside of a Wizards level to beat, Ferrovax is jsut an Ancient Red Dragon.
The Emotional Vamps ahve the potential to cramp ones stily...unless youa re mind blanked (and we are a Wizard, so of course we are^^).

A Black that surprises you can kill you....once. But Contingency is a thing.

Dresden, without Protagonist Bonus, is a medium danger. If one makes an enemy out of hm, but why would I? I am Chaotig Good, ya know? ^^


Overall, unless you manage to REALLY annoy the Mothers I dont think there is a single being in Dresdenverse aside from Archanges that is clearly out of a Wizard 20s League.

[BRKNdevil]

ah... forgot about the Mothers (Summer and Winter Court Old super Fey)
God, how long has it been since the last book came out?

[khadgar567]

ah... forgot about the Mothers (Summer and Winter Court Old super Fey)
God, how long has it been since the last book came out?
technically not that long as maggie dresden book came this spring. yeah if they want to rumble you might kiss the earth good bye.

[Bronk]

I'm not familiar with dresdenverse, could you point where I could learn about it?

This is from the Dresden Files, an urban fantasy series written by Jim Butcher. You should definitely start reading the series, and if you're the sort who doesn't like spoilers for their books, I'd be wary of a thread like this one!

There's also a Dresden Files RPG out there...

Find out what the deal with everything is. If my wizard magic works normally, that means that so does all the divination magics. There's all sorts of cool stuff is going down in the dresdenverse, but Butcher hasn't come out with a new novel for 4 years or so, and the recent book of short stories only had one story set after the last book.

I can find out what's going on now, and who's doing what, to who, for how many cookies. I could figure out the true nature of magic, travel through time, ferret out the Black Council, feed intel to the White Council, figure out what the heck the deal is with the Nevernever, visit heaven, find out what's Outside, learn Dresden's true prophecy, and learn everyone's true names.

Also, I'd get a foo dog. They're super cool.

[Erit]

Also, I'd get a foo dog. They're super cool.

One of the multiversal constants is that dogs as a species are great.

[Quertus]

Well, happily, I can answer this one almost as blind as my Wizard proxy would.

OK. First. WWQD? Well, he's over level 20, well beyond level 20 WBL, and is already familiar(ish) with modern technology. What he'd do is be ticked AF that he can't get home, and look into that, contacting as many of the local powers as his divisions and custom sights allowed him to find (ie, presumably "all of them") in a bid to find allies to help investigate and undo this "curse". I'm uncertain how low he would lay otherwise - bright red robes and obvious magic kinda stick out in most modern settings, so... probably at least invisibility is in order. EDIT: how well Sending was working would determine how... concerned... he would be about being stuck there.

Me suddenly running a level 20 mage with no history? Eh, diplomacy, figure out what's what, hope that my powers are enough to pown anyone who tries to wrong me while I'm learning the rules of their world, and that I never have to find out.

Me, as a level 20 Wizard? Much like above, except I already know technology and a few basic facts from Dresden - like the fact that they have an in-universe RPG to help me learn what's what. So, as a huge change from my current lifestyle, I'd become a roleplayer, trying to learn everything I can before drawing attention to myself. And, probably, hoping to get someone like Dresden to recommend a way to make introductions when I'm ready.

[Luccan]

Help Harry's life not suck. Or if it's too late, help it suck less.

[Crichton]

Step One: Go to Mac's for a steak sandwich and a pint.

Step Two: who cares after step one?

[Xar Zarath]

Hmmmm, depends heavily on WHEN I arrive.

Assuming its in a more peaceful time, use divinaton to find out if there are other wizards, visit them, show that the Merlin himself is at most a third of my level in Power and Versatility, but dont actually take over the White (Socks^^) Council, because that would be too much work. As I am a more chaotic good guy, tell them to tone down their "Behead first, ivnestigate later" methods, or they would have to face me.

Then probably find and "bind" various supernatural Powerhouses, just to make sure they dont trouble me.

Be "Lord High Wizard". :)


Assuming its later on, and mayhap in the middle of a big conflict, show who`s boss to ... just about anybody partaking, really.
And likely eliminate a few factions, intentionally or no.




Do we continue to level btw?

With regards to timeline, you arrive roughly after Changes, where the Reds have been mostly wiped out and everyone is trying to adjust to the situation.

And you don't gain any more levels. If you do lose levels, you only gain back up to 20th level. no go pass 20.

[Eldan]

So you become a Wizard as per DND 3.5e or PF(your choice) straight vanilla 20th level Wizard. What would be your overarching goal? Take over the Black Council? Rule the world? Start your own supernatural PI?


*You have the appropriate WBL in raw currency or magic items your choice.

*Spells that can take you to other planes as per DND/PF cosmology still works,but those same spells can reach the Nevernever. Its just that when you return to the Prime plane, it will be dresden prime.

*You cannot learn dresdenverse magic but by that same reasoning they cannot learn yours. Their magic still obeys their laws, your magic doesnt, e.g Laws of Magic dont affect you.

*When you appear in dresdenverse, you are only equipped with basic knowledge on the modern world but no more. The supernatural and such power groups would have to be garnered out conventionally with magic or otherwise

*If you operate at max competency, assume the same of the dresdenverse, especially the more powerful players.

"Laws of magic don't affect you" is one I find iffy. They are not scientific laws, they are legal laws. If you were to time travel or bring back the dead or cast mind control magic, the white council would still be coming after you.

[Anymage]

"Laws of magic don't affect you" is one I find iffy. They are not scientific laws, they are legal laws. If you were to time travel or bring back the dead or cast mind control magic, the white council would still be coming after you.

There do seem to be metaphysical rules to many of the other ones, but they tend to involve the world and people in it as opposed to being limits on the caster himself. Mind affecting magic can really screw with people's heads after the immediate spell effect has worn off, time travel can do real metaphysical damage to the underlying universe, and trucking with outsiders can open you to meeting Cthulhu and suffering an appropriate sanity hit.

Which opens up one of the biggest questions. How does the wizard interact with the metaphysical rules underlying the world. At its most basic, you have somebody who comes from a realm outside the knowledge of all the power players in the world, and whose abilities work unlike anything else in the setting. That pretty clearly says outsider. If you don't have the protections of being considered both mortal and native to reality, you invite unpleasant attention from things much bigger than you. Presumably you can still cast Mind Blank and hide, but how low a profile you'd need to keep is definitely something to consider.

[Eldan]

The other question is, how willing is the White Council to consider a situation? If this is post changes, they just barely survived the probably bloodiest war of their history, involving treason high up in the ranks, only to emerge into a dangerous power vacuum that will only result in more war. And here's someone who is both recognizably humand and a wizard, who casually uses forbidden magic. Will they be willing to listen to someone say "No, really, I can use mind magic without being twisted!" or will they think "Standard Warlock excuses, that" and try to kill them?

A level 20 wizard is powerful, sure. But unless they are pretty optimized, I'd say there's wizards who can keep up with that on the council. And there's many of them. The Blackstaff (Meteor Swarm), Listens-to-Wind (Shapechange), Dresden (Earthquake)... they are quite powerful in the flashy magic and once they get into rituals...

[Quertus]

So, I'm a bit concerned about what abilities they might have. For all I know, they might have "make your heart explode, no saving throw".

So, if I'm making a Wizard for this, let's ask this question: with really favorable level adjustment buyoff, is there anything that they could actually do to find and harm a Petal Lich Wizard 20, complete with Mind Blank, Astral Projection, Contingencies, Divinations, and Immunities? Plus Hat of Disguise and/or Invisibility?

Do they really have the ability to penetrate the layers of defenses that a D&D Wizard is capable of? If I'm already dead, flying, invisible, immune to most everything (possibly even including damage), not really here, and come back from being destroyed and with the answers to as many questions as I care to ask, is there really anything that they are physically capable of doing about that? Even if they pick up a D&D book and start reading?

And, if the Lich went on the offensive, and their first move was to give Necrotic Tumors to... whoever their Divinations told them would be the tactically optimal first targets, at the tactically optimal moment, is the Dresden universe equipped to notice and deal with Invasion of the Body Snatchers that may have already minionized their best tacticians / biggest guns / most influential members?

[Eldan]

They probably couldn't easily find them, no. But then, the lich and petal is considerably beyond "vanilla level 20 wizard". (Lich also doesn't apply to Fey, unless I'm missing some trickery).

The rest is a question of optimization. I'd say anything that juts makes you immune to damage is probably a bit cheesier than we really want to bother with in a versus thread.

As for how much the Dresden Files wizards can do, well, that's hard to say. I can list a few things that have been done in the series, but we've never really seen the senior wizards tested to their limits, especially not on the offensive. A few things wizards did do in the series:

-Make someone's heart explode. Funny you should mention that, by the way. This required a complicated ritual with several participants and a lightning storm for power, but they did explode a few hearts across a city.
-Change shape repeatedly, too fast to see. Including into monsters.
-Find people at least across the city. That required a magical link, however, such as a body part or personal item. Also, find them on a map. Also, find specific types of spells being cast, in that case, it was necromancy
-Pull an old satellite out of orbit, drop it on a house, destroying that house and part of the surrounding village
-Animate medium sized hordes of various undead. Skeletons, zombies, ghosts in the dozens, at least. Larger creatures, too.
-Turn stone into magma
-Telekinesis strong enough to shoot a large size creature through several walls with one blow, flip cars
-Bloodline curse, kills one person and then everyone connected to them by family lines. Killed beings described as godlike. The ritual was gigantic, though, with thousands of people, rare artefacts and a magical location. Still, wiped out all vampires, ever.
-Bullet- and fireproof shield
-Planar travel, though slowly, involves walking
-Time travel across thousands of years shown as possible, but illegal because dangerous

That's what I remember off-hand. Some of that is not from the strongest wizards in the setting. (The time travel is, as is the shapechanging, as is the satellite. The rest is the series main character, who is strong, but not the strongest wizard.)

And that's just the wizards. This is before we wring in the Faerie Queens or the literal gods.

Edit: of course, that doesn't mean you have to fight them.

[GrayDeath]

One should however remember that, while the BLackstaff does a thing similar to a Meteor Swarm, it requires preexisting old sattelites, lots of power, and ritual magic.

While your Wizard can jsut "do it". Multiple times a day.

Same goes for almost any larger spell in the series, they are either done in the specific area of power of the respective being, require rituals and large external Power sources, or all of the above.

Or it is the single "Main Shtick" of the wizard (Listens to Wind comes to mind, with far faster, if not as powerful, shapeshifting than a Wizard or Druid).

There is, aside from the Mothers and Archangels, not a single being that can rival the power, versatility, defenses and sheer metaphiysical might of a level 20 Wizard.

Yet.



Been waiting for the new book far too long....sigh.


@ OP: OK, right after Changes my first few divinations will tell me the ****storm I landed in.

First Action stack up on defensive buffs while keeping up the Scrying.

Contact the ouncil, take over the Council, steer it towards a more proactive bent (including a lot of summoned and controlled "Other things") to reclaim some type of stability, then fill the Power Vacuum with "us" and one or 2 less Formori factions.

Then go on from there (probably going to look for harry after finding out how picotal he is, that will lead me to find demonreach, and ... lots of fun or quick imprisonment^^).

[Xar Zarath]

The other question is, how willing is the White Council to consider a situation? If this is post changes, they just barely survived the probably bloodiest war of their history, involving treason high up in the ranks, only to emerge into a dangerous power vacuum that will only result in more war. And here's someone who is both recognizably humand and a wizard, who casually uses forbidden magic. Will they be willing to listen to someone say "No, really, I can use mind magic without being twisted!" or will they think "Standard Warlock excuses, that" and try to kill them?

A level 20 wizard is powerful, sure. But unless they are pretty optimized, I'd say there's wizards who can keep up with that on the council. And there's many of them. The Blackstaff (Meteor Swarm), Listens-to-Wind (Shapechange), Dresden (Earthquake)... they are quite powerful in the flashy magic and once they get into rituals...

Well, lets say for the sake of the thread, the Council is aware that you are a Wizard or caster that meets their standard but due to the post war stuff, they haven't gotten around to vetting you yet.

They will send one of their Warden's along. When that point comes, say you are aware due to divinations of your own of the impending interview, what do you do?

[GrayDeath]

Well, lets say for the sake of the thread, the Council is aware that you are a Wizard or caster that meets their standard but due to the post war stuff, they haven't gotten around to vetting you yet.

They will send one of their Warden's along. When that point comes, say you are aware due to divinations of your own of the impending interview, what do you do?

Mind Blank. Then show off the "no corruption quotint" stuff I can do up to, say, Level 7ish. Ergo mainly Evocation, Abjuration etc.

Blow his midn away with that alone (not literally of course^^). And thenr eturn to the above post.

[khadgar567]

by the way meteor drop trick needs not to much power as blackstaff actually pasively casting that every second he just needs to know what decommissioned satellite is near the mark and whats the junks name then its up to good old gravity to do the rest and deliver the payload. as for heart ripper curse guy using was regular mortal in the fist time and papa raith one needed circle magic to pull that of with bunch of cl one guys. for blood curse it technically needed no power just newest born of that particular blood line.

[Bronk]

There do seem to be metaphysical rules to many of the other ones, but they tend to involve the world and people in it as opposed to being limits on the caster himself. Mind affecting magic can really screw with people's heads after the immediate spell effect has worn off, time travel can do real metaphysical damage to the underlying universe, and trucking with outsiders can open you to meeting Cthulhu and suffering an appropriate sanity hit.

Which opens up one of the biggest questions. How does the wizard interact with the metaphysical rules underlying the world. At its most basic, you have somebody who comes from a realm outside the knowledge of all the power players in the world, and whose abilities work unlike anything else in the setting. That pretty clearly says outsider. If you don't have the protections of being considered both mortal and native to reality, you invite unpleasant attention from things much bigger than you. Presumably you can still cast Mind Blank and hide, but how low a profile you'd need to keep is definitely something to consider.

The OP specified that the DnD magic works as normal, so you're good there. DnD based mind effect magic would still be illegal, but not dangerous.



As for how much the Dresden Files wizards can do, well, that's hard to say. I can list a few things that have been done in the series, but we've never really seen the senior wizards tested to their limits, especially not on the offensive. A few things wizards did do in the series:

All good stuff. As a 20th level wizard, we could make simulacrums of any of these wizards and get all of their abilities that way. Although, I don't think that would work for fey queens, since those are actually separate magical overlays...

To be safe from those powers though, our wizard could make a moon base for himself. Maybe not even on our moon! Aside from the familicide spell, everything else the wizards do is pretty short range.

[GrayDeath]

by the way meteor drop trick needs not to much power as blackstaff actually pasively casting that every second he just needs to know what decommissioned satellite is near the mark and whats the junks name then its up to good old gravity to do the rest and deliver the payload. as for heart ripper curse guy using was regular mortal in the fist time and papa raith one needed circle magic to pull that of with bunch of cl one guys. for blood curse it technically needed no power just newest born of that particular blood line.

It does need quite some power to gras something in EARTH ORBIT. And time or effort.
L20 Wizard? Snips his Fingers. Bang.

Yes he was a Mortal, as I wrote RITUAL MAGIC. Ergo tapping something else for power. And loads of it. Raith still needed the perfect victim for it (and some cheap drama queens, ^^).

And the Bloodline curse needed no pwoer? Did you actuall READ Changes? Read again the amount of sacrifices, preps and time the Red Court spent for that little thing.


Also, please use punctuation and at least try to grammar-check your posts. it is really hard at times to understand what exactly you are saying. :)

Edit 2: Base on the Dark Side of the Moon (of Saturn^^), how could I forget that....

[Eldan]

On the other hand, even an L20 wizard would have to get a bit creative to snatch a pre-existing object out of orbit. Blackstaff managed to somehow target the thing in orbit and change gravity subtly enough for it to hit the right building. That's quite the level of precision.

[Quertus]

Well, lets say for the sake of the thread, the Council is aware that you are a Wizard or caster that meets their standard but due to the post war stuff, they haven't gotten around to vetting you yet.

Well, there goes my "lay low" plans.


They probably couldn't easily find them, no. But then, the lich and petal is considerably beyond "vanilla level 20 wizard". (Lich also doesn't apply to Fey, unless I'm missing some trickery).

OK. Never mind the Petal bit. Makes things easier.


The rest is a question of optimization. I'd say anything that juts makes you immune to damage is probably a bit cheesier than we really want to bother with in a versus thread.

The OP mentioned to assume equal levels of optimization. I'm curious what high-op Dresden would be capable of; thus, heavy on the cheese.


-Make someone's heart explode. Funny you should mention that, by the way. This required a complicated ritual with several participants and a lightning storm for power, but they did explode a few hearts across a city.

It's kinda a staple of urban fantasy, IME. :smalleek: Especially when being subtle is required. Thus my intention to not have a heart, if building for urban fantasy.


-Change shape repeatedly, too fast to see. Including into monsters.

Which is meaningless if their monsters are yeti. Assume no relevant knowledges by the reader.

That having been said, as GM, I had an NPC race with a similar ability, and even turning into things ranging from yeti to inanimate objects was incredibly powerful when it ignored the standard action economy.

My point is, while I recognize that it's cool, I'm trying to gauge the maximum power level here. Could they even, like, turn into a dragon and breath fire on me? Not that that's particularly effective, mind.



-Find people at least across the city. That required a magical link, however, such as a body part or personal item. Also, find them on a map. Also, find specific types of spells being cast, in that case, it was necromancy

OK, "find spells being cast" is Quertus level optimization, and is rather scary for the Lich. Even if it took them generations, they could eventually find a way to find (and, presumedly, get to) me. That's a problem.



-Pull an old satellite out of orbit, drop it on a house, destroying that house and part of the surrounding village

Meh. Although that is some nice range they've got there.



-Animate medium sized hordes of various undead. Skeletons, zombies, ghosts in the dozens, at least. Larger creatures, too.

Meh.



-Turn stone into magma

That depends on optimization level as to where that rates. For a Lich, it's at worst inconvenient, like a locked door.



-Telekinesis strong enough to shoot a large size creature through several walls with one blow, flip cars

While powerful, is nowhere near as dangerous as telekinesis precise enough to cut off blood flow. And at worst an inconvenience.



-Bloodline curse, kills one person and then everyone connected to them by family lines. Killed beings described as godlike. The ritual was gigantic, though, with thousands of people, rare artefacts and a magical location. Still, wiped out all vampires, ever.

Well, ****. That sounds like a really good reason for the Lich to Dominate / Necrotic Tumor the lot of them, having the first few constantly on the lookout for the casting of that spell.



-Bullet- and fireproof shield

So, they've got their own immunity to damage? Good. It's handy when your minions aren't just disposable.



-Planar travel, though slowly, involves walking
-Time travel across thousands of years shown as possible, but illegal because dangerous

Yeah, this could make them dangerous to the Lich.

So, fair to say, they could eventually find and travel to any hiding place, and even travel through time to do so before I understand what they can do? If so, that makes them a credible threat. Even cooler, with abilities that seem less powerful than what a 3e Wizard can do.


And that's just the wizards. This is before we wring in the Faerie Queens or the literal gods.

And what can they do? Anything that can actually threaten an optimized Lich?


Edit: of course, that doesn't mean you have to fight them.

Oh, fighting them certainly wouldn't be my first choice, personally. But I just wanted to know if there was any way that they could be a credible threat to an optimized Wizard. Thus, the inclusion of the fourth character, the aggressive dominating Lich.

[Bronk]

On the other hand, even an L20 wizard would have to get a bit creative to snatch a pre-existing object out of orbit. Blackstaff managed to somehow target the thing in orbit and change gravity subtly enough for it to hit the right building. That's quite the level of precision.

You could use wish to wish up a spelljamming helm, pop it on a boat, then nudge the thing out of orbit manually. After that, using our 3.5-ness, hitting the right square down below just requires us to make an attack roll to hit an AC of 5.

[Eldan]

"What can an optimized wizard do" is difficult to say, since we haven't really seen it on page. Throwing a Loup-Garoux the size of a truck through several walls, melting a building or finding all spells cast in Chicago are all done by Dresden, the setting's equivalent of an upper mid-level wizard. He's, what, 30-40 years old? The Senior Council are all centuries old and have never fought full-out on page. At least not according to their strengths, which is day-long rituals like the bloodline curse. Still, there's antagonists who are wizard-ish that we can gauge.

Corpse Taker is the setting's second most high level necromancer/dark wizard, probably. At least in the top three. Her special unique power is looking at someone and then switching bodies with them. In less than a second. High save, too, since she did it on a senior battlewizard who is old enough to remember the Renaissance.

Mavra is a vampire sorceress, with the typical vampire powers. Living corpse, weak to sunlight and faith, turns to mist, undead servants, human servants so thoroughly dominated that they can never again be un-dominated.

Cowl is another necromancer, he has demonstrated resurrection. Though only of someone who died recently.

In addition to the Bloodline curse mentioned above, there's the Darkhallow, another big ritual. Can only be done on halloween and the ritual preparations kill everyone and slay all undead in a considerable radius. How big the radius is isnot actually known, as it seems to grow the more people they kill. Certainly enough to kill all of Chicago. That's just the preparation, mind you. The actual ritual absorbs all those souls and makes you a god. Dresden knows how to do it.

Now,the Faerie Queen. Another "we don't know". They have laws they must follow, as magical creatures and they mainly interact with the story when their laws limit them from achieving their goals and they need mortal agents. That said, it's been said that if the balance in the eternal war between summer and winter shifts, so does Earth's climate. The ice ages are when winter gets stronger. In the spirit world, they are occasionally the size of mountains. The Queen of Air and Darkness' voice knocks people out and makes their ears bleed when she is angry. They certainly change the weather in an entire state just by being there and occasionally cause Hurricanes. If you make a deal with them and break it, you are in their power, no matter where you go. Including other planes. Even a weaker fey was able to find Dresden in minutes while he was in the spirit world after he had broken a deal. Amongst other things, they can kill, take your magic away or turn you into an animal.

Oh, another power Dresden Files Wizards can have. Sanctum intellectus. Or rather, certain spirits of places have it and the wizards can make a pact with them to share it. It's perfect knowledge about their home location. Dresden,later on, knows everything about an entire island. Every animal, every plant, every enemy, even the shielded and concealed ones.

Then there's teh actual gods. Such as Santa Claus. Who has the power to stop time, worldwide, for a night. The Archangel Uriel mentions destroying galaxies.

[Armyguyclaude]

Before I post a reply, few dresdenverse questions I got:
1) Why did no one in the Dresdenverse specifically Dresden get all questiony at any point when Maeve in book 14 state she was going to kill a starborn, upon referencing Dresden himself...?

2) Why did we even have book 15 to begin with? Not that I did not enjoy the book thoroughly, but in book 14 when Dresden lost the Winter Mantel he lost his ability to walk. In book 15, when they invade Marcones bank vault they put power sapping manacles onto Dresden specifically stating that he loses the Winter Mantle, but ends up literally running around and gets into full bodied physical fights afterwords...?

3) Yet again, I love the Dresden Files. I've read and reread the entire series way too many times and can't wait for book 16, but why oh why... do we even have White Nights???? You literally could take that book out of the entire series, and in the beginning of the next book Small Favor just state, "Oh btw, we had an adventure inbetween books like we normally do and now there's a paranormal network of magical people willing to help each other out now." Of course we'd miss out on French Speaking Vampire Boy Thomas, but I digress.

In response to OG:
Assuming since our Magic differs so entirely different from any magic in this world, and since you stated they cannot learn our magic, our mind magic couldn't be proven as mind magic, or even that we did anything at all, I.E. casting a spell in general.

Assuming all broken combo's in the DnD universe now still exist in this world since our magic exists, our magical items can exist as per the WPL rule you stated, I would essentially take over the world. I probably wouldn't do it evil overlord style, but like so many people stated beforehand, I would take time to learn about this world and it's inhabitants, it's power players, and it's rules. Once that has been settled assuming no one would know about who I actually am at this point, since there would be no way to discover what I truly am unless I reveal myself, I would basically create a world under one rule. Such as a communistic environment. I would ensure basic needs would be set for all my inhabitants and create order where chaos once was. I would install harsh punishments for any of the inhabitants not willing to live by those standards and create a police force willing to uphold these new laws. I would start out small, creating a small country of subservience. By magical or diplomatic ways. I would stay away from magic if at all possible, but wouldn't let non-magical ways sway me from my goals. After learning of different powerful players in this world, I would start at the bottom with minor players or solo players in either recruiting them or swaying them to my side with magical means since they would be the least of all the power players to be missed. If anyone could not be swayed to my side through diplomatic or magical means I would destroy them utterly. Not allowing for any means of resurrection outside of divine intervention. I would get rid of all evil or chaotic figures such as the denarians and make sure things of that nature could no longer exist, either by destruction of isolation since we technically have the power to reach planes people in this existence have no way of reaching.

I would use broken combos in dnd to help fund this expedition with either funding, resources, materials, and/or servants. Since there was no mention that I could no longer return to the DnD universe I could always get what I needed magically before returning to my, now, homeplane of dresden prime.

Assuming there are creatures possibly more powerful than myself, I.E. Mother Winter/Summer, God's/God, or other unknown characters yet to be revealed, I would eventually learn that there could be a way to remove or imprison such figures. Since this is no longer the DnD universe, but the regular world, many authors and people have had ideas on how to dispose of such figures. God's getting power from faith/people. Dresdenverse stating immortals can be killed on Halloween. A specific god's material plane razed I.E. Iron Druid Chronicles. Real world applications of Gods killing other Gods. I would identify what makes each god their own and use each God's weaknesses to remove them from the picture should I deem it necessary.

I would set up defenses and precautions all along the way to make sure I had defenses for any situation possible, and use trickery and misdirection for anyone trying to find me. I would essentially be like the character who is leading the black council. An enigmatic figure of almost absolute power and no reason to be in the light so no one would have any reason to target me.

[Armyguyclaude]

Cowl is another necromancer, he has demonstrated resurrection. Though only of someone who died recently.


Cowl didn't resurrect anyone. His partner did. Kumori.

[GrayDeath]

Cowl may have ressurected himself though, at the very least after blowing up during the Darkhallow. ^^


@ your points:

1.: Because weak Author Lampshading is a thing? Even with good Authors like Butcher.

2.: They did not, nothing but Harrys refusal to follow Winter or Mab revoking it can take away his Mantle. His Wizard Powers (the mortal ones) were surpressed to avoid hi blowing something up/being detected by easily built Wizard Detectors (if tech is disturbed equals wizard^^).

3.: For Thomas. That was his book. No other reason except to drop Info about Their Mom of course.

[Armyguyclaude]

On the other hand, even an L20 wizard would have to get a bit creative to snatch a pre-existing object out of orbit. Blackstaff managed to somehow target the thing in orbit and change gravity subtly enough for it to hit the right building. That's quite the level of precision.

He had a telescope :/

[Armyguyclaude]

Cowl may have ressurected himself though, at the very least after blowing up during the Darkhallow. ^^


@ your points:

1.: Because weak Author Lampshading is a thing? Even with good Authors like Butcher.

2.: They did not, nothing but Harrys refusal to follow Winter or Mab revoking it can take away his Mantle. His Wizard Powers (the mortal ones) were surpressed to avoid hi blowing something up/being detected by easily built Wizard Detectors (if tech is disturbed equals wizard^^).

3.: For Thomas. That was his book. No other reason except to drop Info about Their Mom of course.

1: I understand that's a thing just erks me that Harry literally spent the next year with nothing else to do other than Parkouring and never once stopped to think with all that time on his hands... What did Maeve mean? I mean he is supposed to be P.I.

2: Butcher literally states He loses the winter mantle when he puts the manacles on. This is not something I'm assuming for technical purposes. The author himself writes these contradictory things. This in itself could be due to poor writing, but up to this point Butcher hasn't done much of this. I can only assume it's due to the fact I believe he's getting bored with this series.

With the Cowl thing, I'm just going off from things we specifically know, not anything assumed. Eldan specifically stated Cowl resurrected someone recently dead, I'm assuming to the situation in the EMT vehicle. But that wasn't Cowl it was Kumori. Also while Dresden himself states he isn't sure how Cowl got out of the blast stating there's no way someone could make a gateway that quickly, we continually meet characters with powers far exceeding Dresden's own powers, or understanding of how magic itself works. I.E. Hanna Asher and Goodman Grey. If we're assuming things we could also assume Cowl knew of some way to deflect the blast, protect himself from the blast, or escape from the blast with either magical powers already stated, but at a higher level of understanding, or with magical powers not yet revealed. Of course it could be self ressurection as well, but that falls under magical powers not yet revealed. Since the most powerful self necromantic powers shown so far are coming back as powerful shades that can affect the physical realm.

[ezekielraiden]

Become friends with Michael Carpenter and his family. Actually goddamn listen if he has something critical to say about you. Profit, because you have better moral guidance than 99.99% of humanity has ever had.

[tomandtish]

2) Why did we even have book 15 to begin with? Not that I did not enjoy the book thoroughly, but in book 14 when Dresden lost the Winter Mantel he lost his ability to walk. In book 15, when they invade Marcones bank vault they put power sapping manacles onto Dresden specifically stating that he loses the Winter Mantle, but ends up literally running around and gets into full bodied physical fights afterwords...?



2.: They did not, nothing but Harrys refusal to follow Winter or Mab revoking it can take away his Mantle. His Wizard Powers (the mortal ones) were surpressed to avoid hi blowing something up/being detected by easily built Wizard Detectors (if tech is disturbed equals wizard^^).

You are both partially correct, but we may not be hearing the whole thing. Remember, Mab healed him BEFORE he assumed the mantle. So it's certainly within the realm of possibility that in Cold Days, he lost not only the mantle, but Mab withdrew her healing as well.

[GrayDeath]

Become friends with Michael Carpenter and his family. Actually goddamn listen if he has something critical to say about you. Profit, because you have better moral guidance than 99.99% of humanity has ever had.

Well, that goes without saying.

WHile I wont listen to him regarding my overall Plans and use of Magic, MORAL questions that come up, he`s the goto, no dispute there. Moreso than most angels shown in the books btw.

Also will heal him just because "we can" (Wish says hello^^).

[Eldan]

Oh, yeah. Good point. A wish for Michael Carpenter is worth the XP any day. (Though I'd probably try Greater Restoration and Regeneration first.)

[khadgar567]

Oh, yeah. Good point. A wish for Michael Carpenter is worth the XP any day. (Though I'd probably try Greater Restoration and Regeneration first.)
if any of three works marcone will pay you top dollar for Persephone situation.

[Eldan]

Fair point. High-end healing in general seems to be something that D&D is much better at than Dresden Files, unless you get a Queen or Mother involved.

[Armyguyclaude]

You are both partially correct, but we may not be hearing the whole thing. Remember, Mab healed him BEFORE he assumed the mantle. So it's certainly within the realm of possibility that in Cold Days, he lost not only the mantle, but Mab withdrew her healing as well.

You're going off of assumptions. I'm just going off of facts. What we know already. Not what we can't know. I find it hilarious people on these forums will argue to the letter about DnD, but when it comes to fan fiction assumptions galore lol.

[Goaty14]

Become a dirt farmer

Hahaha, ok I'm joking, being a lvl 20 wizard dirt farmer is sooo unoptimized compared to a lvl 20 wizard basket weaver!

[Bronk]

You know, as a dnd wizard in the Dresdenverse, you'd also have to take extra care because the Dresdenverse also has some version of dnd. If the wrong people figure out that your powers match up to that, they can use that knowledge against you... they'd know all your potential tricks.

[MaxiDuRaritry]

You know, as a dnd wizard in the Dresdenverse, you'd also have to take extra care because the Dresdenverse also has some version of dnd. If the wrong people figure out that your powers match up to that, they can use that knowledge against you... they'd know all your potential tricks.And Knowing is Half the Battle!

...Unfortunately, the other half is, y'know, battle.

Just because they know what might be coming doesn't mean they can actually stop it, after all.

[Lord Raziere]

Find out if the Laws apply to my magic first. If not, try to find the catch in general, as there is one DF rpg character who has bibliomancy (basically the closest DF magic comes to DnD Wizard magic) might be similar enough that...well...

Dresdenverse ain't a place that just allows a superhax thing like DnD wizardry in and let you get away with it scot-free. I'm genre savvy, if I abuse my power in a setting of urban fantasy horror like this, bad things will happen. terrible, terrible things that will ruin my life, just as it ruined Harry's. either it will break something or I'm too powerful, it'll make me inhuman like Marcone or the Fae or whatever. there is no hax solution to not becoming a monster.

[GrayDeath]

Except that, see the OP, there is HERE: ^^

@ High Level healing: well,w e are Wizards, so we dont have Restoration and such, and instead of spending WBL for Items that allow us these Spells (or optimize so much that the DVerse Guys are allowed to up their oftentimes ****ty game^^) might be sub-optimum.

ALso yeah, marcones Girl, which likely has been awake and working in a High CLass "Gym" for ears....^^

[Bronk]

And Knowing is Half the Battle!

Awesome.



Just because they know what might be coming doesn't mean they can actually stop it, after all.

True, but...



Dresdenverse ain't a place that just allows a superhax thing like DnD wizardry in and let you get away with it scot-free. I'm genre savvy, if I abuse my power in a setting of urban fantasy horror like this, bad things will happen. terrible, terrible things that will ruin my life, just as it ruined Harry's. either it will break something or I'm too powerful, it'll make me inhuman like Marcone or the Fae or whatever. there is no hax solution to not becoming a monster.

The thing about the Dresdenverse is that the power levels we see continually ramp up with no end in sight. Also, a lot of the more powerful beings are huge jerks. At some point, Mab is going to catch wind of some crazy wizard who has a high probability of being able to do a lot of unheard of things that would be useful in the fight against the outsiders at the gate in the Nevernever, and use her full resources on them. Or call in the old ladies...

Now that I think about it... You'd want to hide your true origin at all costs... because you'd technically be an outsider!

I wonder if we'd be able to touch the Dresdenverse version of voidstone without being harmed?

[Quertus]

You know, as a dnd wizard in the Dresdenverse, you'd also have to take extra care because the Dresdenverse also has some version of dnd. If the wrong people figure out that your powers match up to that, they can use that knowledge against you... they'd know all your potential tricks.

"Not all my tricks, rookie!"

With my love of custom spells, that knowledge could work against them, too.


@ High Level healing: well,w e are Wizards, so we dont have Restoration and such, and instead of spending WBL for Items that allow us these Spells (or optimize so much that the DVerse Guys are allowed to up their oftentimes ****ty game^^) might be sub-optimum.

Would they get proportionally dumber if I brought Quertus, my signature tactically inept academia mage, for whom this account is named?

More importantly, how suboptimal are they usually, compared to how a dedicated team of Playgrounders would utilize their abilities? I mean, I got handed a list of seemingly random abilities they had, and instantly said, "yup, that could threaten a Lich". What would the in-universe characters make of their own capabilities?


At some point, Mab is going to catch wind of some crazy wizard who has a high probability of being able to do a lot of unheard of things that would be useful in the fight against the outsiders at the gate in the Nevernever, and use her full resources on them. Or call in the old ladies...

Now that I think about it... You'd want to hide your true origin at all costs... because you'd technically be an outsider!

And how bad would it be for Quertus to start declaring himself as someone from another world, seeking help to get back home?

And how bad would helping Mab be?

[Eldan]

Mab is the Queen of Air and Darkness. You generally don't want to be involved with her.

[Quertus]

Mab is the Queen of Air and Darkness. You generally don't want to be involved with her.

Why not? Assume the reader knows nothing of Dresden.

Would she backstab Quertus? Would she help him get home? Would fighting her enemies in exchange for her help be bad?

[Bronk]

Why not? Assume the reader knows nothing of Dresden.

Would she backstab Quertus? Would she help him get home? Would fighting her enemies in exchange for her help be bad?

Well, you'd want to get proper introductions and do your best to establish your normality... her job, and her entire reason for existence, is to destroy all Outsiders. She's super powerful and quite driven... she's like the Kurgan of fae. Just look at what she did to Molly to indoctrinate her in Winteryness!

On the upside, you'd have a lot to offer her... they only have one guy at the gate, one wizard, who has a true seeing eye. After he gets a good look at you to determine that you're not secretly some kind of evil hole in reality (Outsiders can hide, but otherwise appear as a blind spot with powers similar to the crack in time from the 11th Doctor series, iirc), you could start by offering more true seeing equipment. I'm sure it would be very lucrative.

We don't know much about the gate, just that the entirety of the Winter Court's power is focused on keeping the Outsiders out, and anything left on earth are just their random dregs or non-combatants (which is still enough to need the Summer Court to protect the earth from them). We don't know, for example, if regular people can step through it to the outside. We do know that pebbles from the outside act just like a piece of voidstone, or a sphere of annihilation, so I'm betting not many of the locals would think to try... but perhaps a wizard already from the outside could give it a shot.

In fact, I think that once a wizard in that situation found out about the gate, they would determine that going through it would be their best shot of getting home. It may very well be possible to sneak past the fae hordes, but if not, you would end up speaking with Mab at some point. I suggest putting up all your defenses before you do, though! Especially elemental immunities, a contingent teleport, and mind blank.

[Nifft]

Assume the reader knows nothing of [thread topic].

That seems like a recipe for terrible threads.

Shouldn't we be posting on topics we know with the assumption that other posters also know something about the topic?

-- --- ----

Anyway, assuming the DFRPG rules are the Dresden File side of the equation, and D&D magic is the only difference -- the D&D character also has DFRPG stress boxes, skills, consequences, etc. -- then the DFRPG caster has more tactical flexibility, but the D&D character has overwhelmingly deeper reserves, and if the low-level spells are threatening then the high-level spells are terrifying, even just the raw-damage ones (which would need to be translated).

The sorts of creatures which can be summoned & bound are another question. If we're using the DFRPG bestiary, that's a lot more tame than what you could pull from the Great Wheel.


If there's transparency between magic systems, then I'd probably join the White Council and spread around custom magic items of continuous protection from evil, because immunity to [Charm] and [Compulsion] effects would make their lives a lot easier -- and the Black Council's covert actions a lot harder.


Note to self: if I'm an Anima Mage, don't bind Zceryll; if I'm not, don't take Alienist levels.

[Braininthejar2]

On the other hand, even an L20 wizard would have to get a bit creative to snatch a pre-existing object out of orbit. Blackstaff managed to somehow target the thing in orbit and change gravity subtly enough for it to hit the right building. That's quite the level of precision.

I don't think he directly interacted with the Satellite at all. He just cursed the building hard enough.

It was a maximized, empowered version of Dresden's 'frozen turkey' incident.

EDIT: The wiki claims it actually was geomancy. Guess I'm not nerdy enough.

[GrayDeath]

Well Quertus, the Dresdenverse Wizards are for one bound by the 7 laws of Magic, the local Mechanics of magic, lots of Tradition, and being careful not to step on the toes of some very powerful beings.

A D&D Wizard is, at most, the latter.

So yes, given some things SOME people there did (which,a s I wrote repetedly in this very thread, were either their MAIN Shtick, large Rituals, or only doable at certain points of time and space, sometimes all 3), are easily able to endanger a medium OP Wizard.

However, the usual use, if looked at through RPG Eyes, is immensely dumb (I mean they have a master SHapechanger, a guy who kills by sweeping his staff and a guy who stopped a whole army of Vampires with ONE Ward!, and they .... do next to nothing with it....for reasons mentioned above).


As for Mab: I think, given your Wizard can meet Rashid first, the WInter Court will be your bestest friend ever.

Because Planar Binding and Gate are a thing, and I for one imagine that the regular Solar is VERY averse to the Dresdenverses Destroy all Life and Order" Outsiders.

So going to the gates, getting outside with a small to medium bodygurd, and starting to gate them in should do WONDERS. ;)

[tomandtish]

You're going off of assumptions. I'm just going off of facts. What we know already. Not what we can't know. I find it hilarious people on these forums will argue to the letter about DnD, but when it comes to fan fiction assumptions galore lol.

It IS fact that she healed him before he assumed the mantle. So losing the mantle shouldn't automatically remove the healing. So when he loses the mantle AND the healing in one situation, and only the mantle in another, it isn't inherently contradictory. ANYTHING we decide about it is an assumption, other than that something different happened in the two situations. What's the main difference in the two situations? In one he's actively rejecting the mantle (and ticking off Mab as a result). But my assumption is no worse than one assuming that something is in error because it DIDN'T work the exact same way even though the circumstances weren't the same.

[MaxiDuRaritry]

Anyway, assuming the DFRPG rules are the Dresden File side of the equation, and D&D magic is the only difference -- the D&D character also has DFRPG stress boxes, skills, consequences, etc. -- then the DFRPG caster has more tactical flexibility, but the D&D character has overwhelmingly deeper reserves, and if the low-level spells are threatening then the high-level spells are terrifying, even just the raw-damage ones (which would need to be translated).

The sorts of creatures which can be summoned & bound are another question. If we're using the DFRPG bestiary, that's a lot more tame than what you could pull from the Great Wheel.I think taking each system as-is would be the best, with our best shot at translating things when necessary. The D&D wizard summons monsters from the Monster Manual, for instance.


If there's transparency between magic systems, then I'd probably join the White Council and spread around custom magic items of continuous protection from evil, because immunity to [Charm] and [Compulsion] effects would make their lives a lot easier -- and the Black Council's covert actions a lot harder.Well, some things would be transparent, such as mind blank completely protecting against mental intrusions and divination magics, while protection from [alignment] does the same against possession and mental influence, regardless of which system the effects are from. Now, a theoretical protection from charm/dominate person spell would only protect against those specific spells, and not against anything from the Dresdenverse, as a counterexample.

Consider the transparency here to be like standard magic/psionics transparency.

Now, should protection from arrows protect against bullets?


Note to self: if I'm an Anima Mage, don't bind Zceryll; if I'm not, don't take Alienist levels.Good call.

[Xar Zarath]

...

Consider the transparency here to be like standard magic/psionics transparency.


For this thread, I think this would be best. In terms of magic interaction, dnd magic and dresdenverse magic can co-react together although technically speaking dnd is more diverse.

[Segev]

Guys, I feel the need to point out that, even beyond all the crazy stuff a wizard can do in PF, you can cast Wish.

It’s pricey, but hat removes limiters on the things you could do entirely. Not power-wise, but scope-wise.

Yes, you can bring back the long dead. And heal. If it’s worth the cost.


As for he interview with the awarden, Segev Stormlord offers the White Council a bargain: he will not cause trouble for them, and they won’t make themselves a problem he has to solve. He will even refrain from animating the dead in their overt jurisdictions, save if they allow it. Of course, if they want his help with any fighting or other problems, his price will include permission to take any corpses and spirits of the dead who fall during the mission.

Also, learning the Darkhallow and adapting it to his own magical style is a must.

I’m pretty sure “Snow White Queen,” by Evanescence, is sung by Dresden after he performs that ritual.

[Eldan]

I don't think he directly interacted with the Satellite at all. He just cursed the building hard enough.

It was a maximized, empowered version of Dresden's 'frozen turkey' incident.

EDIT: The wiki claims it actually was geomancy. Guess I'm not nerdy enough.

Yeah, it couldn't have been a curse. He asked Harry about where they were keeping the telescope and the name of the satellite they had found, so he was actually targeting the satellite, not the manor.

The reasons why I wouldn't get involved with Mab, the queen of Winter:
No failure is tolerated. And she's fond of torturing someone for a few thousand years of failure. Also, gaining her favour means that you now have the entire winter court after you, because they are all predators and have a compulsion to test each other for weakness.

Now, the thing to keep in mind with Dresden Files against D&D is that most D&d spells take a round or a few minutes to cast, while Dresden Files rituals can take days and are supremely vulnerable to interruption. Almost all the Dresden books end with Harry interrupting some dark wizard at the last moment by kicking something over, setting something else on fire and then engaging in a gun fight with the ritualists. A D&D wizard's answer to a Darkhallow is to cast Protection from Evil, a few more anti-undead spells, teleport to the vortex and dispel the ritual, or just kill the wizards performing it. Or cast dismissal on the wild hunt. Or one of three dozen other solutions.

Dresden wizardry would be surpemely vulnerable to scry and die, though they have anti-scrying measures.

[Braininthejar2]

Dresden wizardry would be surpemely vulnerable to scry and die, though they have anti-scrying measures.

Would a foreign wizard be affected by the local treshold rules if he invaded via teleportation?

[Eldan]

I think tresholds by themselves wouldn't affect a D&D wizard much. They can walk all over people's private property. But wards are also bound to tresholds, and whether Dresden wards work on D&D wizards... maybe?

[GrayDeath]

I`d say the wards would ahve to be HELLISHLY powerful or very specific to affect a D&D Wizard more than maybe reducing his Spell DC`s by ... 1.

So outside the merlin with time to prepare, dont worry about it MUCH.

But yeah, the Darkhallow stomp I imagined looked a lot like the above. ^^

[Quertus]

her entire reason for existence, is to destroy all Outsiders.

Well ****.


Just look at what she did to Molly to indoctrinate her in Winteryness!

Who?

Assume the reader knows nothing of Dresden.

I mean, no one's told me I was wrong about them having their RPG in universe... But even that's more of, you know, something I thought I remembered someone saying once.


I suggest putting up all your defenses before you do, though! Especially elemental immunities, a contingent teleport, and mind blank.

Always! Don't leave home without them!


That seems like a recipe for terrible threads.

Shouldn't we be posting on topics we know with the assumption that other posters also know something about the topic?

I mean, I'd like to assume one particular way of approaching this problem, but there are numerous ways to approach it. I've tried 4. From existing character, to me as / with the power of a D&D character, to "what if we did go optimized and unfriendly?". Happily, it's really easy for me to roleplay being ignorant of the Dresden universe, as it's mostly accurate (the main character is a PI with a hockey stick, right? I mean, people say things like, "and then he shoots them", so maybe I'm wrong about that, too.).

What I can't do is things like, say, as a fan, here how I'd like my self-insert to change the world.


Dresden wizardry would be surpemely vulnerable to scry and die, though they have anti-scrying measures.

Would those protect their rituals from being detected? Or just themselves?


I think tresholds by themselves wouldn't affect a D&D wizard much. They can walk all over people's private property. But wards are also bound to tresholds, and whether Dresden wards work on D&D wizards... maybe?

What do/can Dresden wards do?

I mean, they've already demonstrated sufficient capabilities to pose a credible threat to my reasonably high-op Lich, but do they have defenses to match? Are their defenses anything that Quertus would, quite literally, write home about? Would it be tactically advantageous for me to shack up with one / share a space with one even as a Wizard 20?

[Nifft]

Consider the transparency here to be like standard magic/psionics transparency.


For this thread, I think this would be best. In terms of magic interaction, dnd magic and dresdenverse magic can co-react together although technically speaking dnd is more diverse.

It sounds good, but it doesn't mean much until someone does a lot of work to reconcile the systems.

Psi / Magic transparency works because Psi and Magic both have ratings like levels, so stuff like globe of invulnerability can use those similarities to adjudicate abjuration application. SR and PR can look at (a loose variant of) character level.

Psionic powers which deal HP damage are working with damage types and values that are meaningful to spells like protection from energy; magical spells which deal HP damage are working with damage types and values that are meaningful to powers like energy adaptation.

DFRPG magic is not using those terms, nor those value ranges. DFRPG targets have a small handful of stress boxes, not a large pool of HP.

Transparency sounds good, but meaningful transparency looks difficult.



Now, should protection from arrows protect against bullets? I think yes, I mean there are revolvers in Greyhawk and it works fine on them.

[Eldan]

Would those protect their rituals from being detected? Or just themselves?

What do/can Dresden wards do?

I mean, they've already demonstrated sufficient capabilities to pose a credible threat to my reasonably high-op Lich, but do they have defenses to match? Are their defenses anything that Quertus would, quite literally, write home about? Would it be tactically advantageous for me to shack up with one / share a space with one even as a Wizard 20?

The problem here is that most of their defences are quite universe-specific. They depend on two concepts: magic circles and thresholds. I'm sure they could do others, but that's like 90% of what we see.

Magic circles: your basic chalk circle works, but precious metals seem to work better. Specific circles depending on what you want to bind or shut out are even better, we've seen circles of light (with mirrors), of salt, of artwork arranged in a circle, and once I think living plants. They pretty much stop most magic cold, in both directions. You can't cast into them, and can't cast out, though it's been shown they can be smashed with enough power. Depending on the ritual, they could probably draw one around the entire ritual to hide it, but then they couldn't draw on environmental power for it. Still, a circle around an entire large public building has been shown, thjough that needed a hell of a lot of power. What is more questionable is if this would shut down non-Dresden magic, and how well.

Thresholds: buildings that are lived in build thresholds over time. The more loved the building and the more people live in it and the longer they live there, the stronger the threshold. Threshold take some power off any magical creature that crosses it and if it would take all their power, they can't. It's why vampires and fey can't enter houses uninvited and why wizards ask for permission.

Dresden has shown he can build up stronger wards on top of that, and so have other wizards. Dresden's first main ward gave a painful shock to anyone who tried to enter while it was up. Basically, an anti-burglar measure. But later on, he built a safe-room style ward around his house, that made it impossible to enter or leave until the next sunrise, though the enemy just started throwing dozens of zombies at it to wear it down.

Then, there was a more active defence: when someone was trying to kill people from a distance with curses, Dresden built some kind of construction of chalk lines and mirrors around the building that would throw hostile spells back at the caster.

That's basically what I remember. I'm sure there was more.


The other thing is that most of their high-end stuff is supremely rare and taxing in universe. Dresden has knocked himself out for hours trying some of htis stuff, even with days of preparation, hours of casting time and all manner of magical items and help. And he's one of the stronger (if a bit unpractised) wizards in his universe.

[Segev]

Dresdenverse also has massive ties to the Law of Sympathy. Little Chicago is a magnificent monument to this.

[Xar Zarath]

... As for he interview with the awarden, Segev Stormlord offers the White Council a bargain: he will not cause trouble for them, and they won’t make themselves a problem he has to solve. He will even refrain from animating the dead in their overt jurisdictions, save if they allow it. Of course, if they want his help with any fighting or other problems, his price will include permission to take any corpses and spirits of the dead who fall during the mission.

Also, learning the Darkhallow and adapting it to his own magical style is a must. ..

Hmm, I would add though that the White Council would still probably hunt you down. One necromancer is enough to make them go all kill the dude but if you were the necromancer, with the power that dnd/PF has...they would probably try to bring the seniors to take you down Kemmler style, not to mention if they find out you have the Darkhallow.

Anyone with serious power would take notice because the moment you have that knowledge let alone try to attempt it, they would try and kill you. Someone with your power would be already be beyond most, with the darkhallow? In dresdenverse that would probably be beyond a god.

[Quertus]

It sounds good, but it doesn't mean much until someone does a lot of work to reconcile the systems.

Psi / Magic transparency works because Psi and Magic both have ratings like levels, so stuff like globe of invulnerability can use those similarities to adjudicate abjuration application. SR and PR can look at (a loose variant of) character level.

Psionic powers which deal HP damage are working with damage types and values that are meaningful to spells like protection from energy; magical spells which deal HP damage are working with damage types and values that are meaningful to powers like energy adaptation.

DFRPG magic is not using those terms, nor those value ranges. DFRPG targets have a small handful of stress boxes, not a large pool of HP.

Transparency sounds good, but meaningful transparency looks difficult.


I think yes, I mean there are revolvers in Greyhawk and it works fine on them.

RPG? Or universe?

Transparency sounds good, and, in general is fine. Is a particular Dresden spell third level or lower? Didn't matter if they use those terms or not, the answer is based on whether it would work as that power level. Now, we may disagree the answer to that question, bit that just means that there isn't enough information for us to divine the interaction of the physics. Ultimately, some of us will be wrong. That doesn't make the notion that they interact with transparency inherently flawed or difficult to understand, merely difficult, at times, to adjudicate.

Hopefully, we're saying almost the same thing.


The problem here is that most of their defences are quite universe-specific. They depend on two concepts: magic circles and thresholds. I'm sure they could do others, but that's like 90% of what we see.

Magic circles: your basic chalk circle works, but precious metals seem to work better. Specific circles depending on what you want to bind or shut out are even better, we've seen circles of light (with mirrors), of salt, of artwork arranged in a circle, and once I think living plants. They pretty much stop most magic cold, in both directions. You can't cast into them, and can't cast out, though it's been shown they can be smashed with enough power. Depending on the ritual, they could probably draw one around the entire ritual to hide it, but then they couldn't draw on environmental power for it. Still, a circle around an entire large public building has been shown, thjough that needed a hell of a lot of power. What is more questionable is if this would shut down non-Dresden magic, and how well.

The other thing is that most of their high-end stuff is supremely rare and taxing in universe. Dresden has knocked himself out for hours trying some of htis stuff, even with days of preparation, hours of casting time and all manner of magical items and help. And he's one of the stronger (if a bit unpractised) wizards in his universe.

So, I read the first book last night. Wow, is it ever so juvenile. Given some of the undertone subject matter, perhaps that's preferable. But... does it get any better?

From the first book, other than the coincidences and idiot ball holding... I was surprised that magic wasn't actually required to be hidden. And at how low stamina Wizards are. I never expected that, in a stand-up fight, the D&D Wizard could win simply by out-lasting them so easily.

Of course, their rituals might well be "no save, just die". They don't seem fond of / optimized for stand-up fights, but might have their strengths nonetheless.

So... it sounds like my paranoia would have been largely misplaced. Quertus and I needn't have worried about hiding. But we do need to worry about getting a hair cut.

[GrayDeath]

Book 1 and are mediocre, with bits getting worse or better.

The Series actually starts with Book 3, and continued to get better (except maybe for book 9) through the whole run.

So yeah, judging anything Dresden Files related by Books 1 and is a bad, bad Idea. ^^
(Only thing important is him being exhonorated by Mrogan, in a way, that comes back alter. And a look back in the Teen books at why the events of book 1 to 3 had happened).

[Bronk]

Also, learning the Darkhallow and adapting it to his own magical style is a must.

It wouldn't work... it goes against the 'unable to learn local magic' clause in the OP.



So, I read the first book last night. Wow, is it ever so juvenile. Given some of the undertone subject matter, perhaps that's preferable. But... does it get any better?

From the first book, other than the coincidences and idiot ball holding...

The Dresden Files is one of those great series that gets better with every single book... like Discworld had going for a while. In a staid magical society, Dresden is a very 'kick in the door' protagonist. Although, if you didn't like the first one at all, that doesn't bode well.



I was surprised that magic wasn't actually required to be hidden.

It's been a while since I read the early books. It's kinda hides itself though, like a lot of the magic from Harry Potter, or the Veil in the World of Darkness. Harry is out in the open, but most think he's a charlatan.



And at how low stamina Wizards are. I never expected that, in a stand-up fight, the D&D Wizard could win simply by out-lasting them so easily.

Well, they're wizards, and they have a number of advantages over normal people, but they're still just people, and we're comparing them to a 20th level DnD wizard in this thread. Their power is in their numbers, and most aren't as proactive as Harry. Harry himself is in his physical prime, but his magical prime will come upon him over the centuries.



Of course, their rituals might well be "no save, just die". They don't seem fond of / optimized for stand-up fights, but might have their strengths nonetheless.

Sounds right on the money! Their own strengths, their strength in numbers, and their allies and deals with entire nations of mystical creatures with crazy powers that might not be easily defended against.



So... it sounds like my paranoia would have been largely misplaced. Quertus and I needn't have worried about hiding. But we do need to worry about getting a hair cut.

That's how your enemies will get you... when you let your guard down! Be careful out there!

[Quertus]

The Dresden Files is one of those great series that gets better with every single book... like Discworld had going for a while. In a staid magical society, Dresden is a very 'kick in the door' protagonist. Although, if you didn't like the first one at all, that doesn't bode well.

It's been a while since I read the early books. It's kinda hides itself though, like a lot of the magic from Harry Potter, or the Veil in the World of Darkness. Harry is out in the open, but most think he's a charlatan.

Well, they're wizards, and they have a number of advantages over normal people, but they're still just people, and we're comparing them to a 20th level DnD wizard in this thread. Their power is in their numbers, and most aren't as proactive as Harry. Harry himself is in his physical prime, but his magical prime will come upon him over the centuries.

Sounds right on the money! Their own strengths, their strength in numbers, and their allies and deals with entire nations of mystical creatures with crazy powers that might not be easily defended against.

It's not that I didn't like the first book at all, it's just that there are numerous things about the first book that I didn't like. The main character is juvenile, the world feels like it exists solely to let the author discuss the main character, not fond of the author's treatment of women (or maybe it's just his treatment of every character except the main character, most of whom happen to be women - not sure which). The overall plot was rather predictable (although I admit liking the small surprises), but, given the subject matter / if the book was just as clever way to discuss the subject matter, I'd readily overlook that if the plots of future books were more engaging. It just seems a waste to read through so many pages (how many books are there?) just to get a good picture of the Dresden magic system if the story isn't worth the read.

Harry blew stuff up. Publicly. That's about as open as use of magic as I've seen in games where magic is openly used.

Numbers is a disadvantage when mind control conspiracies take them apart from the inside. Even if you find one Necrotic Tumor + Mindrape minion, that doesn't help you track down the other 27.

Are any of those allied creatures immune to being found and dominated? Or could a sufficiently subtle opponent control the whole "allied" army before they're even called upon?

[Bronk]

Numbers is a disadvantage when mind control conspiracies take them apart from the inside. Even if you find one Necrotic Tumor + Mindrape minion, that doesn't help you track down the other 27.

Are any of those allied creatures immune to being found and dominated? Or could a sufficiently subtle opponent control the whole "allied" army before they're even called upon?

Allies? Unknown, that's the problem.

The wizards themselves, however, have been shown to be highly susceptible to mind control. All but one basically have completely ineffective defenses against it.

Edit: Human wizards, at least.

[Eldan]

Actually, mind control parasites inside people is exactlywhat the fey are at war against.

[Nifft]

DFRPG magic is not using those terms, nor those value ranges. DFRPG targets have a small handful of stress boxes, not a large pool of HP.


RPG? Or universe? Looks like I said RPG at least twice. So I suspect it's a fair assumption to make that I'm talking about the RPG.

Which makes sense, of course, since we're talking about mixing characters from one game into another universe... and there happens to be a game already made for that universe, which got favorable reviews, and thus seems rather appropriate as an game-ized abstraction for that universe.

We've been talking about game-ized abstractions, so yeah, I think that the DFRPG is what we ought to be considering as the basis for the DF-verse.


Actually, mind control parasites inside people is exactlywhat the fey are at war against. Harry's apprentice:
- Lives without paying rent.
- Eats without paying board.
- Casts mind-control enchantment magic.
- Uses magical gear provided by Harry without paying.
- Entices men to divulge information merely by talking while wearing cute clothes.

I think Molly qualifies as a mind-control parasite, too.

[unseenmage]

Played in a game once where I was taught GURPS and Dresdenverse simultaneously. So of course I brought a Promethian: The Created character to the table since Dresdenverse hasnt explored the Frankenstein mythos yet.

From what I remember Dresden himself was described as 'a magical thug'. In a world of best laid plans Dresden excels at being the wrecking ball.



As to this discussion, D&D verse will always win against any gameworld with a less robust ruleset. Similar to the Exalted discussion really. A few absolute in universe constants vs all the verisimilitude of Dungeons and Dragons 3rd Edition is a short bout.

It's also a storytelling vs gamist discussion. Gameworlds where death is permanent dont stand a chance against the revolving door afterlife.

Might be more fair to discuss Borderlands vs 3.x. At least then both sides could chat about how little the afterlife has to offer and how much bigger their loot will be next level. :smalltongue:

[Bronk]

From what I remember Dresden himself was described as 'a magical thug'. In a world of best laid plans Dresden excels at being the wrecking ball.

As to this discussion, D&D verse will always win against any gameworld with a less robust ruleset. Similar to the Exalted discussion really. A few absolute in universe constants vs all the verisimilitude of Dungeons and Dragons 3rd Edition is a short bout.

I see it as exactly the opposite. DnD wizards are strong in their own universe because there are well defined powers and opponents that they have the exact counters for. In a less defined universe, where the powers are nebulous and unknown, the wizard will be at a loss. Still powerful, but it's not the same chess match they'd be used to, and with a magical thug trouble magnet in the mix... well, the wizard isn't a PC anymore, instead Dresden is the main character of this universe, and everyone's subject to Pratchett's Law of Narrative Causality. :)

[unseenmage]

I see it as exactly the opposite. DnD wizards are strong in their own universe because there are well defined powers and opponents that they have the exact counters for. In a less defined universe, where the powers are nebulous and unknown, the wizard will be at a loss. Still powerful, but it's not the same chess match they'd be used to, and with a magical thug trouble magnet in the mix... well, the wizard isn't a PC anymore, instead Dresden is the main character of this universe, and everyone's subject to Pratchett's Law of Narrative Causality. :)
D&Dverse has plenty of undefined quantities, we avoid them and move on. Gods even have portfolio sense and alter reality. The Far Realm is explicitly unknowable.

Dresden is a single point in a massive world. Easily avoided.

[MaxiDuRaritry]

Or join Dresden to make him a PC in your party. Now you're still a PC, and Diplomancy once again fails against your mighty PCtorals.

[Nifft]

Dresden is the main character of this universe, and everyone's subject to Pratchett's Law of Narrative Causality. :) Sure but he's the main character of a Jim Butcher narrative.

That means we are one of the many awful things that will cause Harry untold amounts of suffering, and prevent him from getting laid.

Being a side-character in a Dresden Files story can be a route to much more profit and happiness than Harry will ever know.

[Bronk]

D&Dverse has plenty of undefined quantities, we avoid them and move on. Gods even have portfolio sense and alter reality. The Far Realm is explicitly unknowable.

Exactly... The safest way to deal with the unknown is to avoid it, which limits your options a bit when the entire universe is an unknown.


Or join Dresden to make him a PC in your party. Now you're still a PC, and Diplomancy once again fails against your mighty PCtorals.

That would be awesome, and realistically the first thing I'd do while finding out what the heck's going on! I'm not one to take an adversarial stance to the human wizards, especially the ones more likely to give me a good foot in the door.


Sure but he's the main character of a Jim Butcher narrative.

That means we are one of the many awful things that will cause Harry untold amounts of suffering, and prevent him from getting laid.

Oh, you're so right.



Another interesting thing about being a wizard in the Dresden universe... As a prepared caster, our spells would be written in our spell book. The contents of the spell book would probably be immediately added to the well of human knowledge in the Archive, and she understands everything she contains, so she'd gain quite a lot of otherworldly magical knowledge from us... Only the rules in the OP would prevent her from actually using that knowledge.

[Eldan]

Oh, eff, I didn't even consider Ivy. Even if hte rules of the contest prevent her from casting D&D magic, she would instantly understand how D&D magic works and all the spells you have and what they do.

[Bronk]

Oh, eff, I didn't even consider Ivy. Even if hte rules of the contest prevent her from casting D&D magic, she would instantly understand how D&D magic works and all the spells you have and what they do.

That might be the easiest way to introduce ourselves to the right people though! So, the first thing I'd do once I appear there is to quickly jot down a note detailing my predicament and the rules I'm stuck under, that I'm a good guy, can probably help out in any number of ways (including using a wish to resurrect her mother), and could she make some introductions?

It's a lot like what I'd do if the same thing happened in Faerun: Using the names of Mystra's Chosen (and the fact that they hear their name spoken from anywhere in Realmspace and at least a sentence's worth of words afterwards) to make quick calls for help and advice.

Also, thanks for remembering her name! Maybe I could wish up the Dresden Files novels so she could get an overview of what's going on, as a show of good faith.

[unseenmage]

That might be the easiest way to introduce ourselves to the right people though! So, the first thing I'd do once I appear there is to quickly jot down a note detailing my predicament and the rules I'm stuck under, that I'm a good guy, can probably help out in any number of ways (including using a wish to resurrect her mother), and could she make some introductions?

It's a lot like what I'd do if the same thing happened in Faerun: Using the names of Mystra's Chosen (and the fact that they hear their name spoken from anywhere in Realmspace and at least a sentence's worth of words afterwards) to make quick calls for help and advice.

Also, thanks for remembering her name! Maybe I could wish up the Dresden Files novels so she could get an overview of what's going on, as a show of good faith.

Here's hoping you didn't peruse the BoVD for it's most useful spell then...

[Anymage]

That might be the easiest way to introduce ourselves to the right people though! So, the first thing I'd do once I appear there is to quickly jot down a note detailing my predicament and the rules I'm stuck under, that I'm a good guy, can probably help out in any number of ways (including using a wish to resurrect her mother), and could she make some introductions?

It's a lot like what I'd do if the same thing happened in Faerun: Using the names of Mystra's Chosen (and the fact that they hear their name spoken from anywhere in Realmspace and at least a sentence's worth of words afterwards) to make quick calls for help and advice.

Also, thanks for remembering her name! Maybe I could wish up the Dresden Files novels so she could get an overview of what's going on, as a show of good faith.

A character from a D&D universe would neither know about the power players in the dresden files (this is explicitly spelled out in the OP), nor about a book series that neither exists in their home universe nor the one they're headed to. If anything, the D&D wizard might be slightly taken aback by the fact that many elements of how their world works are spelled out in whatever D&D analogue game exists in the dresdenverse.

Really, finding the right group of supernaturals will be one of the trickier points, assuming you come in wanting to play nice. It'll also be interesting seeing everybody's reaction to things they consider ironclad magical laws (like sunrise eroding magical energies, or water grounding spells out) being broken for this one person. The D&D character would come out ahead in this, since you're rarely caught off guard when you assume that your opponent is more capable than he actually is.

[Bronk]

Here's hoping you didn't peruse the BoVD for it's most useful spell then...

Right? You'd have to check your new spellbook quickly, then make very quick decision what to do about what you found in there. If you wanted to stay good - in a universe where you can literally talk to angels - you'd have to erase them somehow and add additional comments that none of this was your fault to your note to Ivy the Archive. I mean, it's already in her brain, so if there were some earth shattering crisis where you'd need it again, she could always give you another copy.


A character from a D&D universe would neither know about the power players in the dresden files (this is explicitly spelled out in the OP), nor about a book series that neither exists in their home universe nor the one they're headed to.

I'm going by the full post: It's us, as ourselves, not a snatched preexisting mage, that this is happening to. So, I don't know everyone's street address, and have only a nebulous clue about what's in the books, but I have read the books, and I know about the White Council, the Archive, and of course Dresden, and that Dresden lists himself in the Chicago phone directory. It's a starting point.

Also, I've really been enjoying this thread!


If anything, the D&D wizard might be slightly taken aback by the fact that many elements of how their world works are spelled out in whatever D&D analogue game exists in the dresdenverse.

I think this could be an issue with people believing us at first as well, although we could back it up pretty fast.


Really, finding the right group of supernaturals will be one of the trickier points, assuming you come in wanting to play nice. It'll also be interesting seeing everybody's reaction to things they consider ironclad magical laws (like sunrise eroding magical energies, or water grounding spells out) being broken for this one person. The D&D character would come out ahead in this, since you're rarely caught off guard when you assume that your opponent is more capable than he actually is.

Lucrative too!

[MaxiDuRaritry]

Mindrape should not have the [Evil] tag. There's literally nothing about it that is evil. It can be used for evil purposes, but so can any number of non-[Evil] spells, from dominate person to fireball. Hell, the number of capital-G Good uses for it outnumber potential bad ones. Just name it something else, like mental mapping, and you should be fine. If called on it, say you use it for teaching large amounts of information quickly and helping willing patients with serious psychological issues.

So that one should be safe enough.

Most of the other [Evil] spells in the BoVD, however...

[Bronk]

So that one should be safe enough.

I agree that the effects of the spell aren't all that different from the evidently completely innocuous Modify Memory, but on the other hand, and judging by the time period we're being dumped in, we'll be trying to explain this nuance to a 6 year old.

[Eldan]

Different question, who in the universe could a wizard work with?
A lot of the power groups would at least be problematic. Winter or the Denarians you don't want to get involved with ever. The White Council may decide to (try to) execute you for being a warlock. The vampires are probably manageable with some protection from evil and a holy symbol, unless you piss them off and they get creative with hitmen and explosives. And at least with Whites and Reds you could probably do business. The Fomor we still don't really know enough about even with the short stories, but they seem fond of abducting magical people. The Archive would be a reasonably safe bet. Summer would probably be willing to work with a non-evil wizard, though the wizard would have to be careful about their contracts, though he probably has some experience with Djinn and Devils and the like. Vadderung would probably hire any non-genocidal wizard in a heartbeat and is just generally good to know. Uh, who else. Svartalfar? Might be willing. Certainly useful if it works.

[Bronk]

Different question, who in the universe could a wizard work with?
A lot of the power groups would at least be problematic. Winter or the Denarians you don't want to get involved with ever. The White Council may decide to (try to) execute you for being a warlock. The vampires are probably manageable with some protection from evil and a holy symbol, unless you piss them off and they get creative with hitmen and explosives. And at least with Whites and Reds you could probably do business. The Fomor we still don't really know enough about even with the short stories, but they seem fond of abducting magical people. The Archive would be a reasonably safe bet. Summer would probably be willing to work with a non-evil wizard, though the wizard would have to be careful about their contracts, though he probably has some experience with Djinn and Devils and the like. Vadderung would probably hire any non-genocidal wizard in a heartbeat and is just generally good to know. Uh, who else. Svartalfar? Might be willing. Certainly useful if it works.

I think I'd go with Dresden and the Archive for sure, then, through them, maybe summer (they're still crazy though).

But, I'm also thinking the Angels. You'd have a lot to offer them, especially if you had access to Wish, but even with True Seeing, Greater Teleport, Teleportation Circle, and so on. You could help be an angel mover, or send messages with Planar Sending. You could also cast Imprison to get rid of the Denarians for good - without killing them, which is a huge hang up - and free up the sword wielders for other tasks.

[Nifft]

Another interesting thing about being a wizard in the Dresden universe... As a prepared caster, our spells would be written in our spell book. The contents of the spell book would probably be immediately added to the well of human knowledge in the Archive, and she understands everything she contains, so she'd gain quite a lot of otherworldly magical knowledge from us... Only the rules in the OP would prevent her from actually using that knowledge.

Maybe we're an Eidetic Wizard, and we smoke rare herbal incense instead of looking at a book.

(It's Dragon Mag content but it's fairly well regarded.)

[Bronk]

Maybe we're an Eidetic Wizard, and we smoke rare herbal incense instead of looking at a book.

(It's Dragon Mag content but it's fairly well regarded.)

Perhaps a carefully worded wish could change your class and feats enough to do this after the fact, in order to surreptitiously regain inappropriately worded spells? Definitely not a safe use of Wish though!

[MaxiDuRaritry]

Perhaps a carefully worded wish could change your class and feats enough to do this after the fact, in order to surreptitiously regain inappropriately worded spells? Definitely not a safe use of Wish though!That would basically be a character rebuild, or possibly a manifestation of psychic reformation, allowing you to exchange some class features for an ACF (which is much like exchanging a class-granted feat for another feat). No real reason to think that it would backfire on you, unless your DM the universe at large is unnecessarily cruel.

[Nifft]

Perhaps a carefully worded wish could change your class and feats enough to do this after the fact, in order to surreptitiously regain inappropriately worded spells? Definitely not a safe use of Wish though!

Why would you need to do that?

An Eidetic Wizard is a type of 3.5e Wizard, so it's valid as a starting condition which conforms with the OP's criteria.

[Quertus]

Looks like I said RPG at least twice. So I suspect it's a fair assumption to make that I'm talking about the RPG.

I was attempting to politely suggest that this isn't a given, and that Max's "territory/map" concept may apply.

Shrug. I'm a war gamer - for me, the rules are the territory. But not everyone agrees with this stance.


Exactly... The safest way to deal with the unknown is to avoid it, which limits your options a bit when the entire universe is an unknown..

Well, I think I've got "avoiding the unknown until it becomes known" fairly well established my modus operandi


Another interesting thing about being a wizard in the Dresden universe... As a prepared caster, our spells would be written in our spell book. The contents of the spell book would probably be immediately added to the well of human knowledge in the Archive, and she understands everything she contains, so she'd gain quite a lot of otherworldly magical knowledge from us... Only the rules in the OP would prevent her from actually using that knowledge.


Oh, eff, I didn't even consider Ivy. Even if hte rules of the contest prevent her from casting D&D magic, she would instantly understand how D&D magic works and all the spells you have and what they do.


we'll be trying to explain this nuance to a 6 year old.

Is it safe to assume that ivy isn't wiser than the Playground, and wouldn't instantly comprehend the full capabilities of a D&D Wizard just by knowing their spells? Ie, "oh, how scary, they have fireball", completely ignoring how much more power can be gotten from, say, chain Gating?

And, if our spell books were, say, extradimensional, would she have access to them?

But, really, I'm rather curious what a neutral third party would make of Mindrape, if they didn't have all the baggage of knowing its history attached. It lets you read and change minds.


A character from a D&D universe would neither know about the power players in the dresden files (this is explicitly spelled out in the OP), nor about a book series that neither exists in their home universe nor the one they're headed to. D&D character would come out ahead in this, since you're rarely caught off guard when you assume that your opponent is more capable than he actually is.

This is more the direction I've been looking at the problem from.


I'm going by the full post: It's us, as ourselves, not a snatched preexisting mage, that this is happening to.

That's one of the ways I've approached this. Well, me, suddenly granted the power and WBL of a D&D level 20 Wizard, but trapped in the Dresden universe.

Out of curiosity, anyone ever calculated the cheapest price of learning all the spells? I haven't really thought much about my preferred build for this thought excitement, but "all the spells" (plus some custom ones) seems like a good investment, since it'll be difficult to acquire more in this world. And crafting feats / Sculpt Self, because Magic Mart isn't available (and we've apparently no other use of XP but to spend it). And money. Because money is a super power.

And my response to that scenario was to hide, become a gamer, learn the RPG, find Dresden (or equivalent), make introductions.

To this I'll add, um, what year would we be showing up? I may look some people (including myself) up, or at least see if they exist. Not that it matters much - I'll likely want to come in with a focus for Teleport Through Time.

EDIT:
Maybe we're an Eidetic Wizard, and we smoke rare herbal incense instead of looking at a book.

(It's Dragon Mag content but it's fairly well regarded.)

Do we have to smoke up to memorize the spells, or just to learn them? Because there's no guarantee that we can get more herb in the Dresden universe.

As always, I'd also take Spell Points, if at all possible, for maximum versatility.

[Fizban]

(Skipping most of the thread)

If you want to imagine what would really happen, you'd have to consider what would really happen.

You show up for DnD with your 20th level 3.5 wizard one day, and the DM tells you something weird happens. For whatever reason seems appropriate (broken portal shenanigans, upset the wrong god, etc) you've become attached to a different prime material plane. The warping of time and space has left you with some knowledge of recent history (extremely recent by dnd standards), and you are now left to your own devices.

What actually happens depends entirely on the type of player and their character.
-A player who does any amount of metagaming will almost certainly assume they're now in a non-magical modern day Earth, and will act accordingly. This will have interesting repercussions. People will say they'd automatically do the perfect thing even if they didn't know the context they already know, but that is rarely the case.
-A character who was raised doing quests as part of a party, is not going to be the same as one meant to be master of the sandbox. A lot of people like to build wizard 20s with the goal of dominating the sandbox, but I have no care for vacuum characters or cheese.

And most importantly, how does the DM actually run this? Because no DM worth their salt is going to have a conversion rate of "lol dnd wins" for everything. Just because your magic doesn't follow the Dresdenverse laws, doesn't mean their magic does either (edit: follow your laws I mean). Or their stats. Good luck binding everything to your will when nothing has a dnd creature type, is capable of failing a save, or cares about maximized hp damage. Try claiming SR:no spells affect a creature that has magic immunity phrased as magic immunity, not SR. Try using hit points and AC boosters to defend against attacks that just destroy things. Any claim that 3.5 magic should just work automatically is admitting the game is rigged.


What would I do? Gee, I'm a wizard, dedicated to the mastery of a type of magic that doesn't exist in this world. The only operable quest is returning home- assuming I care about the material plane (I mean, I do), since apparently I can still go to any other DnD plane. Attempting to do so ought to lead me into whatever it is the DM has prepared, and quest from there. Said attempt would obviously flow from whatever divinatory or information gathering ability I posses. This probably puts me in a position to help or hinder plots from the Dresdenverse, but since I'm not a cheeselord, I'm not going to claim that I could just fix everything, or even anything. I kinda lost my taste for imagining how "crossovers" could save settings after Gurren Lagann really hammered it home how the narrative control of a setting is the only thing that actually matters- dnd magic is un-usable without adjudication, being the player means you're not the one dictating the terms. The Dresdenverse will be fine in the end because it's got Dresden, and even from an in-character perspective, meddling in some other plane's affairs isn't wise.

In fact, since the most likely reasons for me being attached to the wrong material plane originate from the dnd side, I'd probably just Plane Shift out immediately. Research methods of reaching alternate material planes, take a trip through the Deep Shadow, and see if that resets me to the proper prime material. I'd expect that to do the trick if anything would, otherwise there's probably a god directly interfering with me. In which case it's time for a significantly more epic quest to figure out which god and either appease or overpower them. In short, the restrictions as presented in the OP actually don't give much reason to stick around or interact in any way for anyone other than by sandbox supremacy builds.



Is it safe to assume that ivy isn't wiser than the Playground, and wouldn't instantly comprehend the full capabilities of a D&D Wizard just by knowing their spells? Ie, "oh, how scary, they have fireball", completely ignoring how much more power can be gotten from, say, chain Gating?

. . .

But, really, I'm rather curious what a neutral third party would make of Mindrape, if they didn't have all the baggage of knowing its history attached. It lets you read and change minds.
If she understands them as magic rather than a fantasy game, then without the knowledge of the spell slot system she'll probably assume these can be done until the caster drops from fatigue. Comprehending Gate must include at least the knowledge of relative hit dice, and the ability to summon something as much as twice as powerful as yourself and force it to obey, in 3 seconds, is pretty obvious. The ramifications of Greater Teleport, Wail of the Banshee, Wall of Force, Wish's ability to return people to life, all easy. Ivy is a "6 year old" in the sense that the tiny bit of her that is her is a kid, and the rest of her is all the memories and ability of all previous archives. If all your spells are faster and better than those even she can accomplish, that's pretty obvious. I also thought she was like 8 or 10 at least, could be 12 by the current book.

Sorry bub, but there's no such thing as a "neutral" third party when it comes to mind control. Every human (every known thinking being, but all we have in real life to talk to is humans) has a massive aversion to their own mind being controlled. The ability to control and edit someone's self is not neutral, it is either Good if used as medicine, or Evil if used in literally any other context.

As for the reaction of the Dresdenverse, I think it's been mentioned that the White Council would mark you as kill-on-sight, and Ivy would probably tell them the second she detected your existence via spellbook comprehension, as the most dangerous warlock ever seen is something they'd need to know even if just to hide and hope you go away.

[Quertus]

*When you appear in dresdenverse, you are only equipped with basic knowledge on the modern world but no more. The supernatural and such power groups would have to be garnered out conventionally with magic or otherwise.

This is the part of the OP, btw, that has me confused as to how much it's supposed to be "us" showing up, with all our knowledge intact.

[Quertus]

Sorry bub, but there's no such thing as a "neutral" third party when it comes to mind control. Every human (every known thinking being, but all we have in real life to talk to is humans) has a massive aversion to their own mind being controlled. The ability to control and edit someone's self is not neutral, it is either Good if used as medicine, or Evil if used in literally any other context.

As for the reaction of the Dresdenverse, I think it's been mentioned that the White Council would mark you as kill-on-sight, and Ivy would probably tell them the second she detected your existence via spellbook comprehension, as the most dangerous warlock ever seen is something they'd need to know even if just to hide and hope you go away.

It's not mind control - it's far more horrific than that. Given the choice, there's no contest - I'd choose mind control over Mindrape any day.

But, as you say, it has medicinal uses. I would willingly Mindrape myself to remove unwanted desires / habits / whatever. Thus, my curiosity regarding how neutral third parties would view it.

So, why would they consider me the most powerful warlock? Why would that make me marked as kill-on-sight? If I didn't have my picture in my spell book, would they have any clue who I was (or even that these spells all belong to the same person)?

And, if I went the Eidetic Wizard route, would I be fine, at least from detection by ivy?

[Fizban]

So, why would they consider me the most powerful warlock? Why would that make me marked as kill-on-sight? If I didn't have my picture in my spell book, would they have any clue who I was (or even that these spells all belong to the same person)?
Because messing with people's minds in basically any way makes you kill-on-sight for the White Council, mind-editing being exactly what they target. And they don't do "reasonable doubt" or "research purposes," not with anyone that's not already among their highest members. People who do mind-editing are warlocks and need to be put down.

In the Dresdenverse, power corrupts, specifically the power of screwing with people's minds, and even the tiniest bit means you will do more unless you're stopped early enough and happen to be strong enough to fight the urge to do so again every day of your life. Since they all succumb eventually, there's a zero tolerance policy. The whole plot with Molly is basically confirmation that even being taken in by the protagonist isn't enough, she keeps doing it here and there. Now, whether this is actually quite as absolute as the council believes, may not be as sure. The author may be intending that she'll finish sliding down the slope in the future, or she may be meant as proof that some people really can handle life on the edge. But the council doesn't care.

The Archive knows everything written, I would assume this must include sorting the knowledge by container else it would be useless, especially to an Archive. She wouldn't know who you are or where it came from, but she would know anything you had written down, which realistically ought to include a lot of things for a scholarly type.

And, if I went the Eidetic Wizard route, would I be fine, at least from detection by ivy?
If you were already an Eidetic Wizard, and didn't have any scrolls, then sure. But that's a reaction- you weren't running on an Eidetic Wizard assumption before she was brought up (unless you were 'cause I skipped most of the thread), which means you aren't one, which means she knows.

It's a solid lead in to Dresden having to deal with a new crazy supernatural non-Dresden threat- Ivy calls him up and tells him about a book she just detected which is full of magic that is completely unlike any before, and is scary powerful, and he should watch out.

There is room to consider the possibility that the Archive's power is only to know what is written (as in actively written), and rule that she wouldn't see stuff you'd brought with you, since her power isn't fully defined in the books and anyone doing so might not have the full details, but defining it that way has a pretty clear motivation behind it. She's been brought up because she has one of the only absolute effects in the Dresdenverse, one which is actually stronger than the vaunted 3.5 wizard, one which gathers information instantly. Claims that the rest of the sandbox won't notice anything can be met with this one character at absolute minimum noticing.

[Bronk]

This is the part of the OP, btw, that has me confused as to how much it's supposed to be "us" showing up, with all our knowledge intact.

I'm going with the 'You' parts meaning 'me' parts, because that's more interesting than me talking about some random wizard. (Totally cool to imagine your wizard there though!)



Is it safe to assume that ivy isn't wiser than the Playground, and wouldn't instantly comprehend the full capabilities of a D&D Wizard just by knowing their spells? Ie, "oh, how scary, they have fireball", completely ignoring how much more power can be gotten from, say, chain Gating?

I don't think that's safe... she's described as having the entirety of human knowledge in her head at all times, which includes all magical writings, and just having that knowledge lets her use wizard magic at a high level. If she had the dnd spells from our spell book, she'd immediately see all their interactions and be able to use them like an expert under normal circumstances. Also, DnD or something very like it exists in the Dresdenverse, so she'd have a solid basis for understanding the concepts.



And, if our spell books were, say, extradimensional, would she have access to them?


The knowledge wouldn't leave the Archive with the removal of the texts. I don't think we have any examples of extradimensional spaces to know what would happen if a book was added to while it was inside one though.



But, really, I'm rather curious what a neutral third party would make of Mindrape, if they didn't have all the baggage of knowing its history attached. It lets you read and change minds.


It still has the evil descriptor, so I think that particular spell would always be on the outs as a 'good' spell. Bucking one of the laws of magic wouldn't help.



To this I'll add, um, what year would we be showing up? I may look some people (including myself) up, or at least see if they exist. Not that it matters much - I'll likely want to come in with a focus for Teleport Through Time.


There was a follow up post that said after the book Changes... the book itself was released in 2011, although it might not match up exactly with our time. Thereabouts though.

[Bronk]

You show up for DnD with your 20th level 3.5 wizard one day, and the DM tells you something weird happens. For whatever reason seems appropriate (broken portal shenanigans, upset the wrong god, etc) you've become attached to a different prime material plane. The warping of time and space has left you with some knowledge of recent history (extremely recent by dnd standards), and you are now left to your own devices.

What actually happens depends entirely on the type of player and their character.
-A player who does any amount of metagaming will almost certainly assume they're now in a non-magical modern day Earth, and will act accordingly. This will have interesting repercussions. People will say they'd automatically do the perfect thing even if they didn't know the context they already know, but that is rarely the case.
-A character who was raised doing quests as part of a party, is not going to be the same as one meant to be master of the sandbox. A lot of people like to build wizard 20s with the goal of dominating the sandbox, but I have no care for vacuum characters or cheese.



I've been going with the assumption that this was all sprung on me, and I had no choice in my wizard abilities. However, I'd know I wasn't where I was before, I'd have magic in my brain (I'm thinking it would feel a lot like how it was in the Dragon and the George novels), and I'd have a bunch of spellbooks with real magic in them, all of which I think would be a tip off. I think I'd assume I was in a world with magic, but I'd think it was a DnD themed one. If I had a divination spell handy, I'd start with finding out where I was.



And most importantly, how does the DM actually run this? Because no DM worth their salt is going to have a conversion rate of "lol dnd wins" for everything. Just because your magic doesn't follow the Dresdenverse laws, doesn't mean their magic does either. Or their stats. Good luck binding everything to your will when nothing has a dnd creature type, is capable of failing a save, or cares about maximized hp damage. Any claim that 3.5 magic should just work automatically is admitting the game is rigged.


If there's a DM in charge of all this, first priority would be to find them. Sounds like this all just happened though.

As for the magic working, all we know at first is that it does work, somehow. We'd have to perform experiments to discover the specifics of saving throws and all that.

[Fizban]

The "You, the you who is reading this, are now inside the game, what do you do?" thought experiment is already bad enough for people overestimating themselves, but at least it's a translation of knowledge of one game into actions in that gameworld (not that dnd is a functioning game until you add a DM of course). Combining that with a crossover with a non-game world or entirely different game system, I don't see a point in making any claims about that at all.

You can discuss what effects might be useful in the crossover, imagine what interactions might take place. But trying to claim that not only is one both so superb at dnd, but also at personally being the kind of person that a high op wizard actually is, and will then take all of that to a new world, and just figure out how things work, without messing anything up? A normal person subjected to that many dangerous unknowns screws up eventually. If one really happens to be a real-life Batman, then sure, whatever.

Based on the open-endedness of the OP and the suggestion of "You, the viewer," my natural assumption would be that the real question being asked is "hey what cheese would it take to win everything in the Dresdenverse?" (with the usual assumption of all favorable rulings inherent in cheese), but my answer to that was already to redefine the premise. But I stick around for Dresden Files commentary.

[Quertus]

Oh, to anyone familiar with the RPG - is "no save, just die" a fair assessment of how their rituals can work? First book, and there's already super ranged death...

[GrayDeath]

No.

That is the ability of one or 2 "incredbily OP" Rituals. The Rest is easily mislead, or gives vague results (Divination), can be avoided if you are alert (Turkey from Space^^), can be simply stopped by wards or the target being too powerful for even a Death Curse (if a Wizard dies he can burn up his last bits of magic to harm his killer)....and so on.

See the "Heart BLowing" Ritual in Book one as the Dresdenverses alternative to a precise 9th level Far Range Kill Spell. That is obscure. And requires weeks of preparaation.

But then again, maybe youll ignore this post as much as you did my last few....who knows.

[Fizban]

I don't know anything about the RPG, but I think it would be more fair to say that in Dresdenverse, energy and targeting are the only limits, and with enough energy you can get away with poor targeting.

For most purposes that we see, building up a certain kill spell takes a good amount of time, probably at least a few days and either a power source and/or some sacrifices, but there are very few examples. Thing is, saves and hp are game constructs used to abstract away the idea that maybe you don't quite get hit by something that would absolutely kill you if it hit you. Dresdenverse has plenty of things that would absolutely kill you if they hit you even without super ritual, but people fight them without being insta killed. So are those insta kill spells insta kill, or just some form of "damage?" Conversion is required.

It's also worth noting that there's really barely any data on the big players other than Dresden and things he has directly fought, and even then only the capabilities he sees in combat. Even spoiling later battles and plots wouldn't really tell all that much, because their mechanics are not expressed in dnd terms, and dnd terms are rarely perfectly consistent anyway.

[Nifft]

Do we have to smoke up to memorize the spells, or just to learn them? Because there's no guarantee that we can get more herb in the Dresden universe. IIRC on this forum there's a good guide to Eidetic Wizards which could alleviate all your basic mechanical questions.


Because messing with people's minds in basically any way makes you kill-on-sight for the White Council, mind-editing being exactly what they target. And they don't do "reasonable doubt" or "research purposes," not with anyone that's not already among their highest members. People who do mind-editing are warlocks and need to be put down. Though to be fair the Laws of Magic do impose a stain on the practitioner which is visible to a Warden, so it's not like they have no evidence of wrong-doing -- and it's not the case that our mind-magic will impose such an evidentiary stain on our own Wizard.

So the thing they look for, the stain of black magic, will not be a thing on us.

Hopefully we'll either have a consolidated power base OR have them as allies before they realize our full potential.


In the Dresdenverse, power corrupts, specifically the power of screwing with people's minds, and even the tiniest bit means you will do more unless you're stopped early enough and happen to be strong enough to fight the urge to do so again every day of your life. Since they all succumb eventually, there's a zero tolerance policy. The whole plot with Molly is basically confirmation that even being taken in by the protagonist isn't enough, she keeps doing it here and there. Now, whether this is actually quite as absolute as the council believes, may not be as sure. The author may be intending that she'll finish sliding down the slope in the future, or she may be meant as proof that some people really can handle life on the edge. But the council doesn't care. That's bundled under the Lawbreaker mechanic in the RPG -- Harry gets murder-magic, Molly gets mind-magic.


If you were already an Eidetic Wizard, and didn't have any scrolls, then sure. But that's a reaction- you weren't running on an Eidetic Wizard assumption before she was brought up (unless you were 'cause I skipped most of the thread), which means you aren't one, which means she knows. Eidetic Wizard is a pretty common reaction to a universe which won't behave like my friendly DM, and therefore will eventually target my one overwhelming weakness (my spellbook).

There are other ways to avoid having a written spellbook, like that crystal item from Magic of Eberron -- but Eidetic Wizard is great because you remove a key liability. The fact that it also nerfs Ivy is pure bonus. For anyone planes-walking or otherwise leaping into trouble it's an excellent ACF to consider.

You might be able to work around Ivy by keeping your spellbooks in an extradimensional space, and only taking them out in your Magnificent Mansion (another extradimensional space). But if the Wizard in question is me, she's hopefully going to be an ally, since I rather prefer the world as a thing which exists and not personally being driven mad, or murdered, or eaten alive by Outsiders. I'd much rather be her asset than her enemy.

[Bronk]

The "You, the you who is reading this, are now inside the game, what do you do?" thought experiment is already bad enough for people overestimating themselves, but at least it's a translation of knowledge of one game into actions in that gameworld (not that dnd is a functioning game until you add a DM of course). Combining that with a crossover with a non-game world or entirely different game system, I don't see a point in making any claims about that at all.

That's the thread though, and I'm having fun with it.



You can discuss what effects might be useful in the crossover, imagine what interactions might take place. But trying to claim that not only is one both so superb at dnd, but also at personally being the kind of person that a high op wizard actually is, and will then take all of that to a new world, and just figure out how things work, without messing anything up? A normal person subjected to that many dangerous unknowns screws up eventually. If one really happens to be a real-life Batman, then sure, whatever.

The OP sets up the scenario: The magic works. We don't have to worry about any of this.



Based on the open-endedness of the OP and the suggestion of "You, the viewer," my natural assumption would be that the real question being asked is "hey what cheese would it take to win everything in the Dresdenverse?" (with the usual assumption of all favorable rulings inherent in cheese), but my answer to that was already to redefine the premise. But I stick around for Dresden Files commentary.

It's all right in the OP: What would you do? If that's the sort of thing you'd do, have at it. I think you missed out on a lot by skipping reading most of the thread.

[Anymage]

Oh, to anyone familiar with the RPG - is "no save, just die" a fair assessment of how their rituals can work? First book, and there's already super ranged death...

To translate into D&D terms, there are sources you can tap to beef up your magic and there are things you can do to ground out magic. (Either at the source, or around the target.) Also, you can't depend on natural 20s to save you if the DC is too high. So "no save, just die" requires a ton of buildup to push the effective DC into the stratosphere.

Some entities in the dresdenverse could have saves high enough to weather the heart exploding spell. But then there would be ways to ramp the DC up even higher. (Minor spoilers, but there's one case where this was the goal. It required months of preparation and sacrifices, and was conducted by an entity of practically godlike powers.) Whether you can depend on the 5% hail mary chance of a natural 20 depends on how we expect the interface to work.


Though to be fair the Laws of Magic do impose a stain on the practitioner which is visible to a Warden, so it's not like they have no evidence of wrong-doing -- and it's not the case that our mind-magic will impose such an evidentiary stain on our own Wizard.

If you happen to have a written record of Mindrape but never cast it, I think you're in the clear. The White Council surely has tomes of forbidden lore for times when they absolutely have to know about something really bad, but they don't cast any of the law defying spells known within. Ivy surely has many nasty rituals in her head, and again isn't corrupted because she doesn't believe that casting them is right. (An ironclad rule of magic in the dresdenverse, and a practical one in D&D universes; if you believe that enchantment spells are morally wrong, you won't cast any.) A Harry who simply knows the Darkhallow ritual is one thing, if he actually cast it he'd have many very powerful former allies out for his head.

That said, we don't know how The Sight interacts with casting D&D spells, since it's not just True Seeing and Detect Magic stapled together. (Although if you could make several items of D&D True Seeing that didn't have Sight's drawback, you'd make a lot of friends.) Personally, though, I'd wager that Lawbreaking spells would leave a telltale sign on their victims. And that if you cast them often - if you thought that reanimating the dead, magically altering minds, and using magic to kill were all hunky dory - the intent behind those spells would leave telltale signs even if there isn't an explicit D&D rule towards those ends.

[Nifft]

I don't know anything about the RPG

Just as an aside: the Dresden Files RPG (this one (https://www.evilhat.com/home/dresden-files-rpg/)) is one of the best FATE incarnations I've played. Even if you don't expect to play FATE ever, the core book is delightfully well written (and written in-character at that), and has a very portable city-creation mechanic which I've stolen and used in my home games across many different game systems.

If you liked the novels, and you like FATE in specific -- or just reading RPG books in general -- give this one a look.


Disclaimer: Evil Hat doesn't pay me but they totally should, I'm that much of a shill for this thing.

[Quertus]

@Fizban - thank you for the detailed responses. I've only responded to a little below.


If you were already an Eidetic Wizard, and didn't have any scrolls, then sure. But that's a reaction- you weren't running on an Eidetic Wizard assumption before she was brought up (unless you were 'cause I skipped most of the thread), which means you aren't one, which means she knows.

It's a solid lead in to Dresden having to deal with a new crazy supernatural non-Dresden threat- Ivy calls him up and tells him about a book she just detected which is full of magic that is completely unlike any before, and is scary powerful, and he should watch out.

Claiming that my question about Eidetic Wizard was a reaction is almost fair. Or, rather, it's fair that it might seem that way. However, with Mind magic, one could see that my first step for crafting my build (not first thought, which was probably "I don't have a build yet") was "look up easy-bake Wizard". Barring that, one can see that, in this thread, I said that I don't have a build yet, and listed things that would make my life easier based on the lack of D&D Magic-Mart. I think it's a fair extrapolation from there to Eidetic Wizard. Further, if you look at my general post history, you'll see that I'm all about giving the PCs the opportunity to fail, even in an actual game, let alone a thought experiment. And, in this thread, I already probed sufficiently to conclude and admit that the Dresden Wizards pose a credible threat to my optimized Lich (one of four characters I'm evaluating the Dresden universe), and to explain exactly which combination of their abilities I credited with posing such a threat. So, in short, while I can see where you are coming from, i think there's sufficient evidence that it is not merited in this case. I am trying to determine what would happen to each Wizard, and trying to learn about the Dresden universe, rather than trying to "win".

Still, that reaction from lvy sounds reasonable. Although I'm not sure what she'd make of Quertus' spell book, with so many spells dedicated to fixing things that, to their experience, aren't even problems.

Oh, is the fact that she would apparently contact Dresden likely to buy me any chance at talking my way out of things?


If she had the dnd spells from our spell book, she'd immediately see all their interactions and be able to use them like an expert under normal circumstances. Also, DnD or something very like it exists in the Dresdenverse, so she'd have a solid basis for understanding the concepts.

Yeah, no. I've only read book one, but, so far, I'm going under the "the universe is populated by idiots" theory - especially compared to some of the more competent Playgrounders. Knowledge is different from wisdom. The playground is rife with stories of players and GMs who have all the knowledge about the spells, and still believe that Evocation is the only school worth learning, for example.

So, you tell me that she's a six year old, plus knowledge? I'm going with "she's an idiot, like everyone else in the book, but perhaps not an adult-level idiot".

OTOH, if she has access to computer data, and her world's version of the Playground, that might be a different story, depending on whose side she believed.


The knowledge wouldn't leave the Archive with the removal of the texts. I don't think we have any examples of extradimensional spaces to know what would happen if a book was added to while it was inside one though.

Quertus' books do not reside on the Prime Material by default. So, probably, a few days after he arrives, after he's already made introductions to whatever he found, the White Council would suddenly get tipped off to someone's existence. Yeah, it could get interesting then.

Similarly, the Council wouldn't be tipped off to the optimized aggro Lich at all.

Except that they can detect the casting of spells? That could make things interesting.


There was a follow up post that said after the book Changes... the book itself was released in 2011, although it might not match up exactly with our time. Thereabouts though.

Around 2011. Well, time travel would be preferable, then, if some of the people I know are present in the Dresden universe.

[Xar Zarath]

Different question, who in the universe could a wizard work with?
A lot of the power groups would at least be problematic. Winter or the Denarians you don't want to get involved with ever. The White Council may decide to (try to) execute you for being a warlock. The vampires are probably manageable with some protection from evil and a holy symbol, unless you piss them off and they get creative with hitmen and explosives. And at least with Whites and Reds you could probably do business. The Fomor we still don't really know enough about even with the short stories, but they seem fond of abducting magical people. The Archive would be a reasonably safe bet. Summer would probably be willing to work with a non-evil wizard, though the wizard would have to be careful about their contracts, though he probably has some experience with Djinn and Devils and the like. Vadderung would probably hire any non-genocidal wizard in a heartbeat and is just generally good to know. Uh, who else. Svartalfar? Might be willing. Certainly useful if it works.

Technically speaking, if you do meet up with a number of these powers, you could just join up and be a signatory to the Unseelie Accords. You would be a power in your own right like Baron Marcone. You would be treated more or less according to the laws, which are pretty respected.

However by doing so, you would have to play along to the laws as well. Unless you decide to strike out on your own, maybe pull a Kemmler. After all, with your powers you could influence the non-magical side enough to gain considerable power before trying out the magical side.

[Nifft]

Technically speaking, if you do meet up with a number of these powers, you could just join up and be a signatory to the Unseelie Accords. You would be a power in your own right like Baron Marcone. You would be treated more or less according to the laws, which are pretty respected.

However by doing so, you would have to play along to the laws as well. Unless you decide to strike out on your own, maybe pull a Kemmler. After all, with your powers you could influence the non-magical side enough to gain considerable power before trying out the magical side.

You'd only have to play along with laws like the one for hospitality, and neutral accorded ground, though.

You would NOT need to play along with the Dresdonian laws of magic.

[Eldan]

Technically speaking, if you do meet up with a number of these powers, you could just join up and be a signatory to the Unseelie Accords. You would be a power in your own right like Baron Marcone. You would be treated more or less according to the laws, which are pretty respected.

However by doing so, you would have to play along to the laws as well. Unless you decide to strike out on your own, maybe pull a Kemmler. After all, with your powers you could influence the non-magical side enough to gain considerable power before trying out the magical side.

Fair point. You can probably wrangle a sponsorship from Dresden, the Archive, maybe someone else.

[Fizban]

Just as an aside: the Dresden Files RPG (this one (https://www.evilhat.com/home/dresden-files-rpg/)) is one of the best FATE incarnations I've played.
I recall someone saying it was the same system as New World of Darkness, which I've played and read a bit, and I could definitely see how the NWoD system was a great match for the flow of stuff in Dresden Files (much the same way a surprising number of other narratives line up well with dnd) (edit: but apparently this was not correct). I'm not sure I'd want to read the DFRPG myself though, since I already respond to so many things by interpreting them into game mechanics, I'd rather keep at least some books out of that.


I am trying to determine what would happen to each Wizard, and trying to learn about the Dresden universe, rather than trying to "win".
. . .
Oh, is the fact that she would apparently contact Dresden likely to buy me any chance at talking my way out of things?
A whole slate of them, I see. Ivy contacting Dresden is by no means guaranteed, she's independent and they have a positive history- it's just the fastest and easiest way to connect the sudden dnd wizard with the main character of the novel series. Without anything more than knowledge of a new major player with completely different rules, Dresden would be cautious but perfectly willing to live and let live, if he ran into you (he's quite self-aware of all the murphy's laws and large scale events that keep finding him). But he's also Chaotic Good and highly territorial. It's the same as any crossover, two compatible characters ought to team up, and two opposed characters ought to fight.


So, you tell me that she's a six year old, plus knowledge? I'm going with "she's an idiot, like everyone else in the book, but perhaps not an adult-level idiot".
I mean, the books start with Dresden in his 20s (I think?) with no idea of the scope that things are going to reach even just a few more books in. The major supernatural players often massively outclass even the most powerful wizards and are all functioning on Xanatos Gambit/Xanatos Roulette level schemes. Which the reader is generally informed of when Dresden figures them out after they've already gone off, while Dresden is on the ground reacting to them. In one of the more recent books he reflects on just how much of a longer game he needs to be playing. And reacting is another important part there- char-op is accustomed to having an undefined and thus limitless amount of money and time, while Dresden has neither. Many plots begin with him being ambushed, continuously hounded, and end within 48 hours, not something a 3.5 wizard is all that great against either.

My point being that sure, he starts out pretty dumb- in the sense that he doesn't know what's going on, the big picture, hasn't actually dealt with a lot of stuff yet. The ability to just offscreen Sherlock things must be earned over time. The Archive is significantly more savvy, and comparing someone who actually deals with magic to people who play games about magic is two completely different things. Basically any argument that starts with "I assume they're idiots" is a perfect example of why a gamer in a game-world is actually screwed.

Stuff like detection of magic is still conversion based. Magic users in the Dresdenverse can sense magic depending on how strong and how far away it is, like in a lot of stories. But if the 3.5 wizard's spells "just work," ignoring any Dresdenverse rule that would be minorly inconvenient, then hey 3.5 doesn't let you notice magic like that so who cares? Unless that magic detection is part of the magical sense of Dresdenverse casters, in which case they should notice it just fine (for the record, that's the missing component that makes a caster out of someone, with the analogy of a blind person trying to paint for normal people).

[Eldan]

No, it's FATE. That's its own system and it's nothing like WOD. Tons less fiddly, for one, and more story focused.

[Braininthejar2]

The way the Archive retains knowledge of anything written, would she automatically learn to cast your spells, or merely understand them?

[Bronk]

The way the Archive retains knowledge of anything written, would she automatically learn to cast your spells, or merely understand them?

Normally, you might expect her to be able to cast the spells as she can with those of the universe's local human wizards, but the OP specified that we can't learn each other's magic.



Oh, is the fact that she would apparently contact Dresden likely to buy me any chance at talking my way out of things?


(I just wanted to get this out in the open... I'm working on the theory that you don't mind spoilers for the series. There have been lots so far, and there will be more!)

Well, that's the hope, that if you ask her nicely, she'll get us in touch with the open minded Dresden.



Still, that reaction from lvy sounds reasonable. Although I'm not sure what she'd make of Quertus' spell book, with so many spells dedicated to fixing things that, to their experience, aren't even problems.

In the absence of any other explanations or requests to contact Dresden, if she had any other questions her closest advisor would be her demonic mystical sniper assassin bodyguard. He represents a more physical threat of a sort that a paranoid type wizard would be better equipped to handle than most, but it's probably best to head that off as early as possible.



Yeah, no. I've only read book one, but, so far, I'm going under the "the universe is populated by idiots" theory - especially compared to some of the more competent Playgrounders. Knowledge is different from wisdom. The playground is rife with stories of players and GMs who have all the knowledge about the spells, and still believe that Evocation is the only school worth learning, for example.

OTOH, if she has access to computer data, and her world's version of the Playground, that might be a different story, depending on whose side she believed.

I think it's more like most people don't realize they're living in a book universe... they're not genre savvy, and those that are clued in find that information is at a premium. There are a lot of unreliable sources, secrecy is easier than in DnD, and people don't share much. With respect to the universe's actual magic, Dresden's friends have started the Paranet, to help spread useful knowledge among the magically gifted. There may very well be forums for the 'fake' RPG magic of that universe's DnD too, since the basis of most urban fantasy worlds is that 'it's just like our world, only secretly there's all this other stuff going on too'. The Archive would have access to and full understanding of both sets of knowledge.



So, you tell me that she's a six year old, plus knowledge? I'm going with "she's an idiot, like everyone else in the book, but perhaps not an adult-level idiot".

Well, she starts out as a kid when she's first introduced. I think the last time she's shown up in the books, she was 16ish? (And infatuated with Dresden... He has a way of cultivating girls to grow up to be hot potential girlfriends that even the Winter Queen calls him out on.)



Quertus' books do not reside on the Prime Material by default.


That has a possibility of working!


So, probably, a few days after he arrives, after he's already made introductions to whatever he found, the White Council would suddenly get tipped off to someone's existence. Yeah, it could get interesting then.

Similarly, the Council wouldn't be tipped off to the optimized aggro Lich at all.


Wait, what? Quertus is a lich? Yeah, that might be an issue. I wonder if you could instead link up with the evil version of Bob the skull? Since you've read the first book, you know that Bob is an information spirit that Dresden looted from his defeated mentor. Later in the series, however, it's revealed that Bob's segmented like a computer...he has an evil version of himself - the version that helped Harry's evil mentor and worked with the other evil necromancers as well - that's actually more powerful that Bob is normally, because it's filled with so much evil knowledge. After this alternate personality is revealed, Dresden has Bob officially split it off, and it goes it's own evil way. Surely it's loyalties are up for grabs!



Except that they can detect the casting of spells? That could make things interesting.


Wizards can feel magic and the effects of magic, and they can see magic if they use their Sight. Harry has used this ability to see magical workings that extend through the air for miles. Wizards tend not to use the Sight much, since what they See, they can't unSee.

I'm not sure what kind of lich Quertus is, but if he's a regular, 'unspeakable evil act' kind, they wouldn't want to See you at all.

Although, if you don't have eyes, you might be safe from the Soulgaze.

[Eldan]

Yea. Without that statement, I'd absolutely say she could cast them.

Anyway, Quertus specifically: the thing to remember is: they can detect magic being cast. But nothing that big in the Dresdenverse is easy, unless you're already godlike. Dresden poured months of craftsmanship, materials and power into a perfect model of the city of Chicago so he could cast a detection spell over it. And it was considered astounding by anyone who saw it. The bloodline curse ritual was set in one of the most magical locations in the world (Chichen Itza), fueled by thousands of priests, slaves and blood sacrifices. Probably at least for several days, to charge up the potential. The Darkhallow took days, too, at least the preparation. IT required negative energy, so the necromancers spent probably weeks preparing until the entire city felt nervous and uneasy and was full of undead. The only deadly thing that was relatively swift was the heart-exploder, which was done in what seems to be a few hours, with just a handful of people. And that still required part of the wizard as focus.

The White Council won't just detect your magic. They probably could, if they tried to, but it would tap them out for a long time and they have other things to worry about. Outsiders and Fomorians, things like that. And normal teenage warlocks slip through their net reasonably often, and those are not subtle about their magic, in most cases. They might send someone to investigate if there's anything major, but they have their hands full and detection is unreliable.

So, unless you go around fireballing buildings or casting Unhallow over a city block, chances are the council won't notice you.

[Bronk]

I wonder how we might interact with the Oblivion War once we're in the Dresdenverse... would participants try to conscript us? Would Mindblank allow us to help, or would we be a hindrance?

What magic do we have access to that could help? Killing the evils on the bad guy side is just temporary, so I'm thinking the imprisonment spell for them too.. perhaps used on another planet, like I was planning for the Denarians.

Also, we've recently learned that there's an entire class of mystical predators that only children can see, interact with, and remember. I say we should remember, since that's local magic, but how would we go about helping children keep their minds uneaten? Should we start breeding and empowering foo dogs?

[Eldan]

Where did we learn that? Have there been new short stories lately?

[Nifft]

I wonder how we might interact with the Oblivion War once we're in the Dresdenverse... would participants try to conscript us? Would Mindblank allow us to help, or would we be a hindrance? The positive utilitarian enchantment known as mindrape could certainly help.

Summoning a Bard-casting creature to cast modify memory could also help.


Also, we've recently learned that there's an entire class of mystical predators that only children can see, interact with, and remember. I say we should remember, since that's local magic, but how would we go about helping children keep their minds uneaten? Should we start breeding and empowering foo dogs? Hopefully something like true seeing would see them anyway.

If not, there are nasty terrorism tactics we could employ using rocks + PAO to create kid-shaped traps -- but that's a bit morally sticky because morally it could be argued that the traps are (temporarily) real kids, and sticky because of the effect of high-explosives.

[Bronk]

Where did we learn that? Have there been new short stories lately?

Yeah, collected in 'Brief Cases', which came out back in June. That info came from the last one, which was new.


The positive utilitarian enchantment known as mindrape could certainly help.

Ouch, my soul!



Summoning a Bard-casting creature to cast modify memory could also help.

It's true, having a mind wipe ability that doesn't turn everyone evil or insane would be a huge plus.



Hopefully something like true seeing would see them anyway.

It's unclear... kid wizards can see them, but adult wizards can't, and they all have the Sight. You'd think that if they could see it and imprint that memory with the Sight as a kid, there must be some reason they can't discern it in that same memory as an adult.

You're right, our true seeing should work... but would we forget again?



If not, there are nasty terrorism tactics we could employ using rocks + PAO to create kid-shaped traps -- but that's a bit morally sticky because morally it could be argued that the traps are (temporarily) real kids, and sticky because of the effect of high-explosives.

Maybe just illusions with soul magic inside? Or a sympathy spell?

Oh, but the monsters are still inhabiting the bodies of other children, so swap the death trap with a banishment spell... And a limited wish to remove the insanity?

[Quertus]

No.

That is the ability of one or 2 "incredbily OP" Rituals. The Rest is easily mislead, or gives vague results (Divination), can be avoided if you are alert (Turkey from Space^^), can be simply stopped by wards or the target being too powerful for even a Death Curse (if a Wizard dies he can burn up his last bits of magic to harm his killer)....and so on.

See the "Heart BLowing" Ritual in Book one as the Dresdenverses alternative to a precise 9th level Far Range Kill Spell. That is obscure. And requires weeks of preparaation.

But then again, maybe youll ignore this post as much as you did my last few....who knows.

Have I been seeming to ignore your posts? Sorry if it seems that way. Sometimes, several posters have said the same or similar things, and I've responded to the one that either was more clear, or the one that led to more questions.

So, sheer power can prevent magic from taking hold? Well, then, Wizard 20 would be all but untargetable, wouldn't it?



Many plots begin with him being ambushed, continuously hounded, and end within 48 hours, not something a 3.5 wizard is all that great against either.

I mean, I think you underestimate the abilities of a 20th level Wizard, if you think being ambushed and hounded by thugs is going to cramp their style. But, then, I've only read / gotten my hands on book 1 so far.


My point being that sure, he starts out pretty dumb- in the sense that he doesn't know what's going on, the big picture, hasn't actually dealt with a lot of stuff yet. The ability to just offscreen Sherlock things must be earned over time. The Archive is significantly more savvy, and comparing someone who actually deals with magic to people who play games about magic is two completely different things. Basically any argument that starts with "I assume they're idiots" is a perfect example of why a gamer in a game-world is actually screwed.

No, I'm not "assuming" that they're idiots - I am a) observing that the characters in book 1 are idiots; b) observing that most humans IRL are idiots, especially and relevantly c) even when given all the information (such as the full text of all D&D spells), they'll make the wrong choice. Thus, I'm calling people out on assuming that the Archive would automatically make optimal decisions based on the information of D&D spells, because many IRL humans have failed at that task, and Dresdenverse humans appear sub-par from my limited reading.


Stuff like detection of magic is still conversion based. Magic users in the Dresdenverse can sense magic depending on how strong and how far away it is, like in a lot of stories. But if the 3.5 wizard's spells "just work," ignoring any Dresdenverse rule that would be minorly inconvenient, then hey 3.5 doesn't let you notice magic like that so who cares? Unless that magic detection is part of the magical sense of Dresdenverse casters, in which case they should notice it just fine (for the record, that's the missing component that makes a caster out of someone, with the analogy of a blind person trying to paint for normal people).


Wizards can feel magic and the effects of magic, and they can see magic if they use their Sight. Harry has used this ability to see magical workings that extend through the air for miles. Wizards tend not to use the Sight much, since what they See, they can't unSee.

So, Wizards in the Dresden universe can't actually passively sense magic, they have to actively open themselves up to the crazy? Well, that sounds like a Wizard's daily buff spells aren't going to be a horrible liability short-term. Long term, it may leave a trace on the place the Wizard usually stays, and, in the case of the Agro Lich, could help Dresden Wizards actively track him?


You'd only have to play along with laws like the one for hospitality, and neutral accorded ground, though.

You would NOT need to play along with the Dresdonian laws of magic.

So, if I can get myself declared as something different, the White Council will reascend their death sentence? Good to know.


Wait, what? Quertus is a lich?

No, I'm running 4 different characters through this thought experiment - one (not Quertus) is a Lich.

Quertus is an existing mage, well beyond level 20, but that doesn't actually significantly affect his capabilities (usually*). He is familiar(ish) with modern technology, but would be ticked AF at being trapped, unable to return to his home. His plan of action would be to avoid attracting the mundane attention to his bright red robes and obvious magic that invariably occurs on these annoying artifice worlds (ie, Invisibility at the earliest opportunity), and use his various sights and detects to seek out assistance from the more knowledgeable magical beings in the world to help him get back home. How diplomatic he would be would depend on whether things like Sending were working.

By default, Quertus' spellbooks are kept in extradimensional space. So he would likely have made introductions before the Archive was aware of (some subset of?) the contents of his spellbooks. At that point, things might get interesting (unless he had already been declared as "something different"?).

* by virtue of being "more powerful than the gods, he may find himself immune to many Dresden universe ritual attacks.

The OP specified something along the lines of "assume that if you're smart, Dresden Universe scales up, too". So, I wanted to see what the Dresden Universe would look like if it scaled up. So I added an optimized(ish) Lich, who actively wanted to take over the Dresden Universe (or, well, at least the Wizards, since that's all I was confident existed).

A list of seemingly random abilities later, and I concluded that the Dresden Universe actually does pose a credible threat to even my somewhat optimized Lich. However, if he was subtly Mindraping / Necrotic Tumoring his way through the power structure, I'm not convinced that they'd notice him before it was too late. Or, rather, notice him before he had control of "all the known Wizards", leaving only the unknown Wizards, and everything else to potentially deal with him. Can the "unknown Wizards" actually pull off time travel and planar travel? (I'm assuming that, by dent of sheer numbers, they could survive the crazy of Third-Eyeing their way to the Lich). And, long-game, can prospective Wizards be detected as babies, to Necrotic Tumor them in the crib, before they pose a threat?

So, if I were going to an (at the time mostly) unknown universe, I'd optimize for simplicity - Easy Bake Wizard (ish), Spell Points, enter play knowing (almost) "all the spells", a few items, cash (1gp = $500? Money is my superpower), item creation feats, Sculpt Self, etc. Especially since, by the rules given, we've no use for XP besides spending it. Not terribly familiar with the series, I'd have utilized the one fact* I knew, and, as a great change from my current self, become a gamer, and learned the Dresden Universe RPG rules, hopefully before attracting any attention from the powers that be. Then, (assuming that what I read in the RPG rules + whatever divinations I did said that this was a good idea), hoping that Dresden was a good guy, try to hunt him down, to try to convince him to help me make introductions.

The biggest problem I see is, as one can tell from my post history, I love Mindrape. And the White Council might not look too kindly on this fact. Well, that, and I might meddle in Time. And, apparently, I'd actually want to be involved in the Oblivion War.

* no one has corrected me on this. Then again, no one has confirmed it, either...

My fourth* entry was just "random level 20 mage, no history", and hasn't really seen much discussion.

* well, second, chronologically, just 4th on this particular list.


Anyway, Quertus specifically: the thing to remember is: they can detect magic being cast. But nothing that big in the Dresdenverse is easy, unless you're already godlike. Dresden poured months of craftsmanship, materials and power into a perfect model of the city of Chicago so he could cast a detection spell over it. And it was considered astounding by anyone who saw it. The bloodline curse ritual was set in one of the most magical locations in the world (Chichen Itza), fueled by thousands of priests, slaves and blood sacrifices. Probably at least for several days, to charge up the potential. The Darkhallow took days, too, at least the preparation. IT required negative energy, so the necromancers spent probably weeks preparing until the entire city felt nervous and uneasy and was full of undead. The only deadly thing that was relatively swift was the heart-exploder, which was done in what seems to be a few hours, with just a handful of people. And that still required part of the wizard as focus.

The White Council won't just detect your magic. They probably could, if they tried to, but it would tap them out for a long time and they have other things to worry about. Outsiders and Fomorians, things like that. And normal teenage warlocks slip through their net reasonably often, and those are not subtle about their magic, in most cases. They might send someone to investigate if there's anything major, but they have their hands full and detection is unreliable.

So, unless you go around fireballing buildings or casting Unhallow over a city block, chances are the council won't notice you.

So, given my intended plans, I should be safe, unless the Archive warns them to look for certain things?


The positive utilitarian enchantment known as mindrape could certainly help.

Mindrape is your friend. Trust in Mindrape.

[Segev]

Hmm, I would add though that the White Council would still probably hunt you down. One necromancer is enough to make them go all kill the dude but if you were the necromancer, with the power that dnd/PF has...they would probably try to bring the seniors to take you down Kemmler style, not to mention if they find out you have the Darkhallow.

Anyone with serious power would take notice because the moment you have that knowledge let alone try to attempt it, they would try and kill you. Someone with your power would be already be beyond most, with the darkhallow? In dresdenverse that would probably be beyond a god.
Segev Stormlord would make himself useful enough to work with, but also would have more than enough willingness to hold entire cities hostage through threats of collateral damage should they come after him. And, as a necromancer, he absolutely could ensure that. Just leaving sleeper minions lying around with orders to rampage if he fails to make a scheduled notice would do it. But he's a paranoia mage with multiple contingent spells (most of which are variations on "leaving now; coming back when I know who did that and can kill them for it"), and he's layered up for protections.

Plus, while it's illusion and not necromancy, he would absolutely use simulacra to interact "in person" with people he didn't trust implicitly not to try to backstab him.

Sure, they'd love to hunt him down. But for the same reason they don't "hunt down" the Black or White Courts, he'd be reasonably safe. Especially since he'd prefer to work with them rather than against them in most situations. And would absolutely adore the Black Court as potential minions and cannon fodder.

[Fizban]

So, sheer power can prevent magic from taking hold? Well, then, Wizard 20 would be all but untargetable, wouldn't it?
When he says too powerful I believe he is referring to magic resistant creatures. Wizards can cast shields of course, but that's an active defense.

I mean, I think you underestimate the abilities of a 20th level Wizard, if you think being ambushed and hounded by thugs is going to cramp their style. But, then, I've only read / gotten my hands on book 1 so far.
If they'd spent their entire career in spots like that, not getting treasure and needing to work a dayjob, they would have significantly lesser defenses than the ideal wiz 20. I'm not really sure what actions you're marking out as dumb, but the best I can think of for the series overall is the lack of preparedness. Dresden goes on and on about how a prepared wizard always wins, but he's usually not prepared, which is "stupid," if one is comparing him to wiz 20's pulled from the aether/who've already won their campaigns. And no, I don't believe in "the abilities of a 20th level Wizard," because they're entirely player and DM dependent- like I said, I like answering questions about Dresden Files, but I do pretty much entirely disagree with the lack of definition/complete 3.5 wizard slant of the premise.

So, Wizards in the Dresden universe can't actually passively sense magic, they have to actively open themselves up to the crazy? Well, that sounds like a Wizard's daily buff spells aren't going to be a horrible liability short-term. Long term, it may leave a trace on the place the Wizard usually stays, and, in the case of the Agro Lich, could help Dresden Wizards actively track him?
They can definitely sense spells being cast nearby, and passive magic of a certain caliber that hasn't been hidden, but who knows what caliber dnd magic counts as? The Sight is basically Truestiest Seeing plus seeing metaphors and emotive qualities. If you can think of a narrative reason The Sight would be an advantage, it probably is, if one is willing to accept never unSeeing it (too much use is said to drive people insane, though whether directly or simply do do the amount of unSeeable things probably doesn't matter). There are other forms of detection magic, the Sight is just always there if you're willing to pay the price.

It sounds like someone might have suggested the White Council would just know the moment you showed up and started casting? That'd be a no, unless you did some big magic nearby. Since actual dnd spells are considered trivial multi-use per day 3 second affairs, from the 3.5 perspective nothing you'd be using is major. From the Dresdenverse perspective, spells as low as 3rd level spell could be noticeable as far as across town, depending on what it does and how sensitive someone is. DnD has essentially no means of masking magical signatures outside of Magic Aura for items, so if the DM declared you were noticable, anyone in range would notice.

So, if I can get myself declared as something different, the White Council will reascend their death sentence? Good to know.
I mostly disagree. The White Council wouldn't care that your magic is different if you're a human with magic, who might even refer to yourself as a wizard, and if you wanted their sponsorship they'd want to signing on to their laws. The only way to get them to leave you alone would be being demonstrably too strong to worry about when you're not directly attacking them- an easier feat as they take attrition from wars as the series goes on.

To be clear- the White Council is big and scary, to a single person, such as Dresden when they decide he's a bad guy. To the greater supernatural world they're a player, but still made up of squishy mortals. The main thing that keeps all the supernatural players in line are the Unseelie Accords, which you cross at the peril of drawing the wrath of Mab herself, who based on later revelations is quite possibly the most powerful of them all by an order of magnitude or more. So conflicts are light skirmishes and threats are on an individual level, at least until later.

[Nifft]

I mostly disagree. The White Council wouldn't care that your magic is different if you're a human with magic, who might even refer to yourself as a wizard, and if you wanted their sponsorship they'd want to signing on to their laws. The only way to get them to leave you alone would be being demonstrably too strong to worry about when you're not directly attacking them- an easier feat as they take attrition from wars as the series goes on.

Humans with other types of magic don't get the same Lawbreaker stuff, and I think they aren't managed by the White Council.

[Fizban]

Humans with other types of magic don't get the same Lawbreaker stuff, and I think they aren't managed by the White Council.
Example? Dabblers get a warning from the Wardens to stay in line, Gard is effectively a member of a separate court and I seem to recall something something being said about why she was effectively off the radar. If you're thinking stuff like the Alphas, that's hardly magic. The breadth and depth described in a 3.5 wizard's spells is most obviously compared to the wizards of their own world. Or is this more details from the short stories?

Edit: upon review, it sounds like you're referring to the RPG rules, which seem to have the councils laws as separate slippery slope mechanics, as in "Lawbreaker." Are any of these more directly supported by examples from the books? Even when the author's involved in the game rules I'd like to think they wouldn't re-align the stories with mechanics created to fill out a game.

[Lord Raziere]

The "You, the you who is reading this, are now inside the game, what do you do?" thought experiment is already bad enough for people overestimating themselves, but at least it's a translation of knowledge of one game into actions in that gameworld (not that dnd is a functioning game until you add a DM of course). Combining that with a crossover with a non-game world or entirely different game system, I don't see a point in making any claims about that at all.

You can discuss what effects might be useful in the crossover, imagine what interactions might take place. But trying to claim that not only is one both so superb at dnd, but also at personally being the kind of person that a high op wizard actually is, and will then take all of that to a new world, and just figure out how things work, without messing anything up? A normal person subjected to that many dangerous unknowns screws up eventually. If one really happens to be a real-life Batman, then sure, whatever.

Based on the open-endedness of the OP and the suggestion of "You, the viewer," my natural assumption would be that the real question being asked is "hey what cheese would it take to win everything in the Dresdenverse?" (with the usual assumption of all favorable rulings inherent in cheese), but my answer to that was already to redefine the premise. But I stick around for Dresden Files commentary.

I agree. These thread never take this kind of question seriously and instead pretend as if the magic will work fine with no drawbacks just like in DnD, and that the person will plan everything perfectly.

[MaxiDuRaritry]

I agree. These thread never take this kind of question seriously and instead pretend as if the magic will work fine with no drawbacks just like in DnD, and that the person will plan everything perfectly.The only drawbacks would be social, because D&D magic doesn't have drawbacks. If it did, it wouldn't be D&D magic; it'd be D&D magic with a bunch of houserules nerfing it, which wasn't mentioned anywhere.

Would a male D&D wizard in the Wheel of Time universe have to put up with the taint on Saidin, for another example? No, because he uses D&D magic, not the WoT True Source. He might have to fight off female channelers thinking he's gonna go insane, but that's a separate issue (hence "social drawback").

[Anymage]

I agree. These thread never take this kind of question seriously and instead pretend as if the magic will work fine with no drawbacks just like in DnD, and that the person will plan everything perfectly.

This. I'm especially amused by things like how people do things like bring their spellbooks, have it pointed out that Ivy suddenly knows all their capabilities, and retcon themselves to be eidetic wizards. If you have to go backsies when a flaw in your plans is pointed out, you wouldn't be the rational genius you like to think you are if dropped into the situation.

Not to mention that in the dresdenverse specifically, if your sole goal is the accumulation of power without having to be beholden to anybody else, there's an organization that would be happy to have you as a member. They'll even give you a shiny membership coin.

[GrayDeath]

Which you cant ake, if you mindblank(Protection from Evil yourself beforehand, without ecoming possessed, and so infiltrate them easily....if you just meet Ivy first and ask the simple question of: How can I help?

After all, I never became an Eidetic Wizard, so she read my Spellbook and probably my Diary of "how I became an all powerful Chaotic Good WIzard" ^^

[Fizban]

The only drawbacks would be social, because D&D magic doesn't have drawbacks. If it did, it wouldn't be D&D magic; it'd be D&D magic with a bunch of houserules nerfing it, which wasn't mentioned anywhere.
DnD magic has plenty of drawbacks, that people ignore. Having to prepare spells is a drawback- 20th level just happens to conveniently give you so many spells you can claim the ability to handwave any encounter. Having to actually find copies of spells to learn is a drawback- but people assume the DM will let them "buy" whatever they want in their backstory for this 20th level character. Any character drawing on Forgotten Relams sources could rightfully be said to draw from the Weave in Forgotten Realms, from Mystra, and potentially unable to use magic in any other cosmology.

Would a male D&D wizard in the Wheel of Time universe have to put up with the taint on Saidin, for another example? No, because he uses D&D magic, not the WoT True Source. He might have to fight off female channelers thinking he's gonna go insane, but that's a separate issue (hence "social drawback").
Taint makes for a nice straw man, sure. What about countering spells slicing weaves, shields, silence eavesdropping wards, Dreamspikes, Tel'aran'rhiod, Myrddral shadow riding, or the Dark One's own interference? Do none of those affect a 3.5 wizard because their spells "just work?" It is literally phrased with a presumption of the 3.5 caster's rules always taking precedence, gee, I wonder who's got the advantage?

But Raziere has kinda responded to me out of context, since my point there still wasn't the crossover specifically- it's that no matter how good you think you are spending weeks on a forum making up the rules for how you want your game to go, that's not what would happen if "you" actually had to do any of that. It's actually kinda funny how the epitome of the theorycraft 3.5 wizard is to basically remove themselves from the world entirely and sit on a fortified demiplane telling their avatars what to do while they occasionally press buttons that make magic happen. So yeah, if "you" as a 3.5 wizard is the same as you in the real world, completely cut off from any danger and operating only through proxies that do exactly what you tell them, manipulating time with planar traits so you can spend days or weeks getting every decision right, just playing a game after mysteriously starting with every possible advantage. . . I don't really have anything to say about that. You do you, and I'll do something I actually find interesting.

Such as pester people who've apparently read the Dresden Files short stories for examples of the details I'm missing out on (in a hopefully low-spoiler fashion, since I do have the first anthology and was gonna pick up the second eventually) which would make them react differently than I expect.


Not to mention that in the dresdenverse specifically, if your sole goal is the accumulation of power without having to be beholden to anybody else, there's an organization that would be happy to have you as a member. They'll even give you a shiny membership coin.
True. And if we're being honest, there's no reason for an Evil character not to accept and reap the rewards.

[Eldan]

To be fair, once you have it, there's really no reason not to Astrally project. At least in a world without Githyanki or Astral Dreadnoughts. It's a backup life. A Super Mario 1up.

[Fizban]

To be fair, once you have it, there's really no reason not to Astrally project. At least in a world without Githyanki or Astral Dreadnoughts. It's a backup life. A Super Mario 1up.
In the current context, all those things still exist. The wizard in question isn't actually being transported to the Dresdenverse- it's more accurate to say that the Dresdenverse has suddenly been connected to the entire DnD cosmology, through this one specific wizard, since that wizard is still connected to the rest of the dnd cosmology and all of their dnd rules apparently take precedence. If the wizard is Astral Projecting, all that stuff is still there. But true char-op uses Mindrape'd Ice Assassins with Permanent Telepathic Bonds instead.

[MaxiDuRaritry]

In the current context, all those things still exist. The wizard in question isn't actually being transported to the Dresdenverse- it's more accurate to say that the Dresdenverse has suddenly been connected to the entire DnD cosmology, through this one specific wizard, since that wizard is still connected to the rest of the dnd cosmology and all of their dnd rules apparently take precedence. If the wizard is Astral Projecting, all that stuff is still there. But true char-op uses Mindrape'd Ice Assassins with Permanent Telepathic Bonds instead.And there's absolutely no reason why you shouldn't use both.

Unless you eschew 1-ups because you got a fire flower...for...some reason.

[Anymage]

Which you cant ake, if you mindblank(Protection from Evil yourself beforehand, without ecoming possessed, and so infiltrate them easily

Denarian coins almost certainly count as artifacts, so you get the effects no matter what. The corruption effect isn't mind affecting; denarian demons very pointedly cannot screw with your free will. It's just that the power tends to encourage people to use it towards jerkier ends. You may or may not get a Lash equivalent (depends on the interaction between Mind Blank and artifacts), but the sort of person who wants to win settings will go in whole hog.


After all, I never became an Eidetic Wizard, so she read my Spellbook and probably my Diary of "how I became an all powerful Chaotic Good WIzard" ^^

Playing nice, learning the rules (both the effective planar traits and the social mores), and reaching out to the good guys is an effective option. Maybe not in crapsack worlds where everybody sucks, but luckily the dresdenverse isn't one of them. Your biggest risk going that route is running across one of the other supernatural thingies, making a deal without knowing what you're getting into, and getting sucked into someone else's drama.

It's the people who think that the existing characters are all idiots because they don't act in hyper optimized ways who stand out. Especially when their own plans for hyper-optimized winning the setting have to be revised due to flaws.

[MaxiDuRaritry]

DnD magic has plenty of drawbacks, that people ignore. Having to prepare spells is a drawback-And 3.X gives a LOT of ways to handily mitigate most or all of that. There are several ways to cut down study time, as well as numerous ways for a wizard to cast spontaneously. You could even go psion-with-a-StP-erudite-cohort and be a 100% spontaneous "wizard" without any real drawbacks to speak of, which is what I'd do if I had my druthers.

If nothing else, a fast-time demiplane I could use as a study would be one of my first major efforts at higher levels. Plane shift there via a nightmare minion, rest and study, and be back with a full complement of spells nigh instantaneously.


20th level just happens to conveniently give you so many spells you can claim the ability to handwave any encounter. Having to actually find copies of spells to learn is a drawback- but people assume the DM will let them "buy" whatever they want in their backstory for this 20th level character.Are you houseruling, now, saying a wizard doesn't get his 2 free spells per level? Or that such a character can't spend his wealth as the books say he can? We're going by rules, not houserules.


Any character drawing on Forgotten Relams sources could rightfully be said to draw from the Weave in Forgotten Realms, from Mystra, and potentially unable to use magic in any other cosmology.FR wizards are fully capable of casting away from the Weave. It's just that all arcane and divine casters use the Weave when in FR, even those from other campaign settings, like Greyhawk. The mechanics are otherwise identical. Remember, the movers and shakers from several different campaign settings canonically visit each others' worlds (and ours, as well), and they have no problems working with (or without) the Weave.


Taint makes for a nice straw man, sure. What about countering spells slicing weaves, shields, silence eavesdropping wards, Dreamspikes, Tel'aran'rhiod, Myrddral shadow riding, or the Dark One's own interference? Do none of those affect a 3.5 wizard because their spells "just work?" It is literally phrased with a presumption of the 3.5 caster's rules always taking precedence, gee, I wonder who's got the advantage?Sure, they could cut a 3.5 wizard off from the True Source, or try to cut all of his weaves as he makes them. Does nothing to his arcane spellcasting since he doesn't use those things, but they could certainly waste their efforts trying.

Things that affect the world regardless of the magic system would potentially affect the wizard (such as balefire, for instance), but anything that specifically targets the True Source, channelers, and weaves would not -- not even a little. If they can negate sound in the area, that would work the same as a silence spell, and interrupting the wizard's sleep could work, assuming they can get past his mind blank effect to mess with his mind as he sleeps. And since a lot of spells specifically affect all sources of an effect (such as mind blank affecting ALL sources of mind-affecting stuff), then magic works as intended unless it specifically specifies things like arcane spells and spellcasters.

[Xar Zarath]

...Not to mention that in the dresdenverse specifically, if your sole goal is the accumulation of power without having to be beholden to anybody else, there's an organization that would be happy to have you as a member. They'll even give you a shiny membership coin.

Hmm, I would rather accumulate power on my own (DND/PF) methods rather than resort to the Denarians. Assuming I do my homework on what their Order really is about, it would take a few divinations to confirm that, getting a coin also means getting a Fallen on your back.

And if I am gunning for sole power, I rather not share it with a malevolent Fallen Angel who just going to try and gank me for their own ends or Nico's end.

Nah, rather stick to other ways of getting moar power! That way, you don't have to be beholden to anyone else but yourself.

[Quertus]

Sigh. It seems that the Playground is not terribly cohesive in adjudicating the capabilities of the Dresden universe. And, in many cases, lack of memory or rose-tinted glasses prevent them from seeing just how dumbly most of the characters are portrayed. So, apparently, I'll have to read the series for myself to get a good answer for what would happen to my sample characters. Who only existed in this thread for the purpose of me learning about the Dresden universe, since I never intended to read the series. Sigh. At least it's an easy read.

With the thread's stated transparency, my reading is that things would affect one another, even if they shouldn't: Arcane Sight and True Seeing will see them just fine, WoT casters could shut down D&D mages, etc. I'm not sure about using one another's items, or conning the Archive into inventing more spells for you at their accelerated rate (and 0 cost!) of research.

Personally, I have an established history of arguing for and caring more about "what is there isn't transparency?", and laughing at the poor idiot D&D Wizards who just assume planar geography is always going to remain constant (and, to a lesser extent, at the WoT trying to cut D&D Wizards off from something that they're not using). But that isn't what this thread is asking. I'm not completely certain what it is asking, but that isn't it.

Certainly, one could create a new thread to ask a different question, if that might be more interesting to some subset of the Playground. (EDIT: I see someone has preemptively taken my advise...)

Oh, and while I agree that Mindrape Ice Assassin is the way to go, I wasn't certain that the Wizard would get to bring all their minions. If so, Leadership, and a Cleric cohort, would be nice for a low-op solution to the "dead" condition. Of course, if those minions resided on a plane other than the Prime Material, they may get to tag along for free.

[Fizban]

Are you houseruling, now, saying a wizard doesn't get his 2 free spells per level?
Go ahead and try to build the ultimate lol hax wizard with only 2 spells per level, see how far it gets you. I'm serious.

We're going by rules, not houserules.
I could have sworn someone was coining a new fallacy term for that. Anything you want is RAW, anything you disagree with is a "houserule." DnD literally does not function without a DM, nothing in the rules supports the idea that the player gets to dictate the content and rules of the game. Crowing about how powerful your wizard is when you're dictating the terms is exactly the same as the DM crowing about how cool their NPCs are. Exactly the same.

If you want to prove how awesome a wizard is, you do it by accepting every restriction they throw at you and then being awesome anyway. Funny how no one ever steps to that.


Sure, they could cut a 3.5 wizard off from the True Source, or try to cut all of his weaves as he makes them. Does nothing to his arcane spellcasting since he doesn't use those things, but they could certainly waste their efforts trying. If they can negate sound in the area, that would work the same as a silence spell, and interrupting the wizard's sleep could work, assuming they can get past his mind blank effect to mess with his mind as he sleeps.
They can in fact negate sound in an area, you seem to have read it so I don't know why you're doubting that. In fact, hardened air, being solid, would block line of effect in dnd terms, making even fairly weak channelers capable of shutting down a wizard entirely (not counting a Silent Teleport to run away of course). What even is Dreamwalking? You claim it's a mind affecting effect that can be blocked by Mind Blank. It's also a plane, and weaves of spirit pass through it to affect those who dream themselves there, which can happen to anyone. But you want it to be blocked by Mind Blank, so it is. In fact, no weave is "mind-affecting," that's a DnD term. Compulsion weaves are described by channelers as an actual web that sinks into your brain and screws with it, which is nothing like how dnd magic works at all (because it "just works," eh?).

You can either have transparency, or not. If you don't have transparency, all those absolute defenses come crumbling down, aside from the laughable "I hide on a demiplane and play video games." If you do, then crossover magic users get to interact. That's all there is to it. But the apparent premise here is based on a one-sided "transparency" where the dnd magic "just works."


Sigh. It seems that the Playground is not terribly cohesive in adjudicating the capabilities of the Dresden universe. And, in many cases, lack of memory or rose-tinted glasses prevent them from seeing just how dumbly most of the characters are portrayed. So, apparently, I'll have to read the series for myself to get a good answer for what would happen to my sample characters. Who only existed in this thread for the purpose of me learning about the Dresden universe, since I never intended to read the series. Sigh. At least it's an easy read.
It's a narrative with a massive scale of potential power levels, most of which not having been revealed because the series is only just more than half done, with some posters drawing from the RPG based on it instead, being compared to a completely different specific game system where people are being allowed to dictate half the rules to themselves. What did you expect?

If you don't like the books then don't read them, there are few bigger wastes of time than forcing yourself to consume something just because. But if you can't even tell me what you think is so dumb about the characters then don't accuse me of rose-tinted glasses.

[Quertus]

if you can't even tell me what you think is so dumb about the characters...

You want a list?

Dresden wastes his time reading novels when massively in debt.

Pressed for time, Dresden wastes time chatting with and sparring with Murphy.

Paranoid about being killed, Dresden takes the stairs - but doesn't bring any of his combat tools.

And that's just the first chapter. And ignores general things, like "starts with 0 potions in inventory, and is generally bad at thinking ahead".

Murphy, at least, sounds competent so far, being to the point, expending her points as necessary, and repeating critical information.

Should I keep going?

[Fizban]

In the spirit of the thread though, I can give some rough ideas of how to try and help, if I was to be given wizard powers and plopped into the Dresdenverse with my own meta-knoweldge. Though in order to avoid knowledge from the future, I'd assume landing after Skin Game, and I'm still not going to build something I wouldn't allow in my own game.

Obviously first thing I'd do would be contact Dresden and Ivy, the main character and one of my favorite side characters- who is also one of the more powerful independents, and offer my services for those aspects in which my own abilities surpassed theirs. This is going to be primarily in the area of transportation, but if I'm tailoring my build then I'd go Divine Oracle, because some high accuracy Divination and Commune spam on tap would have gone a long way many times. Legend Lore in-between plots is probably a fine way to spend some slots. Healing isn't quite as easily accessed, but a Limited Wish is sufficient to clear up Dresden's lingering problem. On the transportation side, sure there's Teleports, but the simple convenience of Overland Flight is also pretty huge for a guy who usually has to beat feet.

If Mind Blank is enough to block out the effects of Demonreach then ideally I'd be stationed there, since its defenses are better than anything I could cook up without access to an obscene amount of time and "miscellaneous crafting components."

Personally I wouldn't expect dnd magic to do squat to any of the big nasties in the Dresdenverse, since it's just not personal enough on the oomph factor and not powerful enough on the direct measurable force factor- though heavily metamagic'd fire spells might work. The usually reliable SR:no control spells would be similarly ineffective against the physical prowess commonly demonstrated, and even if Shapechange sounds like it's on par with a Skinwalker I still don't have the knowledge or experience to step up to a shapechanging fight. Probably prepare a slate of test spells in case I'm called in for muscle, but I'd also bring something quite unconventional- a hit of Tenser's Transformation (or Limited Wish: Divine Power)+ gun could do in a pinch.

What I'd really be more interested in is a Sorcerer build. Even better, with a full 20 levels, I'd want to see what a Dracolexi could do, 'cause those are cool. Dunno what kind of hp things have got around there, but we do know that there's some word of command magic around, and a bunch of Power Word spells could be quite strong. And it doesn't much preclude a fire+metamagic build.

One thing I would not do, is try to directly go after any of the major bad guys. An absurd number of unknowns, even trying to gather information directly about them (rather than indirectly about the future plans of an ally) could result in backlash. The best place to be is as another valuable ally, another weird overpowered side character, an ace to be played by the people whose world this actually is- and hope that my presence doesn't rock the boat hard enough to tip it over.

One of the most helpful things might be the detection of Outsider influence, but there's just straight up no real analogue for that, so figuring out what spells might detect or remove it would be some risky trial and error. I wouldn't be surprised if Dresden sent his new wacky wizard buddy to go talk to the Gatekeeper and see what we could cook up.


You want a list?
Dresden wastes his time reading novels when massively in debt.
Pressed for time, Dresden wastes time chatting with and sparring with Murphy.
Paranoid about being killed, Dresden takes the stairs - but doesn't bring any of his combat tools.
And that's just the first chapter. And ignores general things, like "starts with 0 potions in inventory, and is generally bad at thinking ahead".
Murphy, at least, sounds competent so far, being to the point, expending her points as necessary, and repeating critical information.
Should I keep going?
Honestly, still just sounds petty to me.
-Dresden's dayjob is being an investigator. This means he has to be available to answer calls, and he can't carry a pager, so that means going to the office. Where he reads books to pass the time.
-He gets called by Murphy for a second job at the same time, and you complain about him responding (I'd assume you were complaining about something later, but you said first chapter and followed it with-), right after you complained that he wasn't doing enough to get out of debt.
-You're complaining about a theatrical person referring to themselves as paranoid for taking the stairs, when he hasn't actually been attacked by anything serious, this being the first book- in later books he will be significantly more armed a greater percentage of the time.
-And I've already been over the magical gear. The potions he makes in the first book sound cheap, but it's made clear that a lot of the random stuff he's got in the cupboards is not cheap. Making magical gear is expensive- again, you just complained about him being in debt, and now you're complaining that he's not pouring money into combat gear when he's not yet been embroiled in anything.

So he's "dumb" because he doesn't know he's the protagonist of a book yet and has to hold down a dayjob instead of having tons of gold heaped on him for existing, while your wizard is smart because they start with so much money and power they can treat the world like a videogame. Mhm.

[Anymage]

Sigh. It seems that the Playground is not terribly cohesive in adjudicating the capabilities of the Dresden universe. And, in many cases, lack of memory or rose-tinted glasses prevent them from seeing just how dumbly most of the characters are portrayed. So, apparently, I'll have to read the series for myself to get a good answer for what would happen to my sample characters. Who only existed in this thread for the purpose of me learning about the Dresden universe, since I never intended to read the series. Sigh. At least it's an easy read.

Yeah, Harry does have a habit of rushing in sometimes instead of planning out all possible avenues of attack. That's because it's more exciting to read about action than it is to read pages of planning. Similarly, Harry is aware that he has a hard time saying no to a pretty face. That's a classic trope of detective fiction, and shouldn't be a surprise that it's deeply embedded in his DNA. At least if the books are an easy read, it should be easy to reach the point where the author found his stride.

Also, nobody is saying that Harry is modeled off of Sherlock Holmes. Nor are they saying that Harry is anywhere near the top of the food chain. He's a known quantity, and on the side of good if you want to reach out to the good guys. He still took a while to outgrow some of his juvenile traits, and still hasn't with others. Again, those happen because they make for more interesting stories.

As to the power levels at play, though, Harry is nowhere near the top of the food chain. Towards the top, we have an archangel who matter of factly states that he could annihilate galaxies. So to answer your questions for two of your characters; a good-natured, epic level academic would probably meet some of the power players. They'd either help send you back home if possible, or send you off to explore the depths of the nevernever (the setting's equivalent of the various planes) otherwise. Your lich who tried spreading necrotic cysts around would emphatically not be human, and would be violating free will all over the place. Free will is a big thing in the setting. Making messes all over the place while being an undead mockery of life would quickly get you spotted by a very big boy, who would hit you with the equivalent of the Life and Death (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/divine/divineAbilitiesFeats.htm#lifeAndDeath) power. Your spell loadout probably won't help you with that.

[rmnimoc]

You want a list?

Dresden wastes his time reading novels when massively in debt.

Pressed for time, Dresden wastes time chatting with and sparring with Murphy.

Paranoid about being killed, Dresden takes the stairs - but doesn't bring any of his combat tools.

And that's just the first chapter. And ignores general things, like "starts with 0 potions in inventory, and is generally bad at thinking ahead".

Murphy, at least, sounds competent so far, being to the point, expending her points as necessary, and repeating critical information.

Should I keep going?
First thing to point out, Harry Dresden is NOT a good wizard at the start of the series. He's a novice who frequently makes terrible mistakes because he doesn't have much experience. This is a guy who thinks it's a good idea to ask demons for information, doesn't realize he shouldn't break deals with fairies, and doesn't even have the experience to know when to let people with more knowledge solve a problem.

That said, the examples you gave aren't as dumb as they seem, or rather, they make a lot more sense with more information.

Considering that Dreden-verse magic is powered by emotions, it makes complete sense Dresden is reading a novel while in debt. When your mind and emotions are your weapons, not taking efforts to keep them in good condition is just stupid.

Considering it wasn't his brain driving his decisions involving Murphy there and he really didn't want her all that involved to begin with, it's understandable, if still stupid.

Dresden is effectively on Wizard-probation. If the guy shadowing him can find an excuse to kill him, he will. Bringing that stuff around is dangerous because it might convince the guy to kill him before he breaks the laws. While the guy shadowing him isn't quite that stab happy, Dresden doesn't know that yet and won't until it's no longer a concern. Obviously being decapitated would have impacted his plans quite a bit.

Potions in the Dresden Files don't work like D&D potions. The effects aren't consistent and they really aren't all that great. Plus, Dresden doesn't really know how to make useful ones and Bob is far to dangerous to trust 100%.

Dresden isn't a smart fighter, either starting out or later in the series, but it's a mistake to assume he's stupid. Most "dumb" things he does have a reason that just isn't explained at the time. Except when it involves women. Then he's just dumb.

[Fizban]

Making messes all over the place while being an undead mockery of life would quickly get you spotted by a very big boy, who would hit you with the equivalent of the Life and Death (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/divine/divineAbilitiesFeats.htm#lifeAndDeath) power. Your spell loadout probably won't help you with that.
Better to not invoke mention of 3.5 deity abilities, since char-op tends to scoff at them.

I think you're overestimating the amount of direct involvement the archangels take. Even if the interloping wizard was considered an Outsider, the breakthrough of a discreet entity or entities still seems to be an entirely mortal and faerie problem.

I don't think there's actually much question that a theoretical 3.5 wizard 20 could take whatever power they wanted if hooked into the Dresdenverse under these conditions, since the conditions are essentially "no limits do whatever you want," and all they have to do to avoid being swarmed is align themselves with a big enough power player, good or evil. Hence there not being much to say on it.

[Quertus]

Honestly, still just sounds petty to me.
-Dresden's dayjob is being an investigator. This means he has to be available to answer calls, and he can't carry a pager, so that means going to the office. Where he reads books to pass the time.
-He gets called by Murphy for a second job at the same time, and you complain about him responding (I'd assume you were complaining about something later, but you said first chapter and followed it with-), right after you complained that he wasn't doing enough to get out of debt.
-You're complaining about a theatrical person referring to themselves as paranoid for taking the stairs, when he hasn't actually been attacked by anything serious, this being the first book- in later books he will be significantly more armed a greater percentage of the time.
-And I've already been over the magical gear. The potions he makes in the first book sound cheap, but it's made clear that a lot of the random stuff he's got in the cupboards is not cheap. Making magical gear is expensive- again, you just complained about him being in debt, and now you're complaining that he's not pouring money into combat gear when he's not yet been embroiled in anything.

So he's "dumb" because he doesn't know he's the protagonist of a book yet and has to hold down a dayjob instead of having tons of gold heaped on him for existing, while your wizard is smart because they start with so much money and power they can treat the world like a videogame. Mhm.

Petty? I'm struggling to understand the meaning and/or relevance of the word in context. So let me step through that.

Yes, reading for pleasure is a perfectly valid thing for a successful detective to do while waiting for a job. However, by dent of later chapters, where it's shown that he lacks common knowledge of his city, he probably doesn't even read the newspaper before reading novels. But, more to the point, there's things he could be doing while waiting for a job that would be more beneficial (potion brewing) or lucrative (crafts, if nothing else). I'll grant that his magic is probably too limited and/or taxing to let him make money using his art, which would be my first choice otherwise.

Since I already mentioned them, skipping down to potions... Sure, he has no money, but it's demonstrated that he already has the ingredients. So, in his off months, surely he could have brewed some. Now, depending on their shelf life, keeping potions in stock may be a very bad plan, so I could be wrong about this being dumb. However, could he have sold potions to Wizards with less time on their hands? Probably not, given his status? Eh, two questionable chances for this to have been something he missed, or I could just be wrong. Obviously, given the existence of Third Eye, he could have sold potions to muggles, though.

I'm not complaining about him taking the job from Murphy, I'm complaining about the way he talked to Murphy. True, we don't have the full knowledge of their history together as of the first book, let alone the first chapter, but Dresden - who, in chapter 2, talks about how well he knows Murphy - wastes time bantering with her despite both of them being in time crunches. Kids just watched some random cartoon where the idiot main character did just that, presumably as a lesson to not do that - it's not a sign of competence.

Dresden recognizes the potential to be attacked, enough to avoid enclosed spaces, is pretty useless in a fight without his tools, and leaves them at home. It doesn't paint a picture of competence.

So, yeah, not acknowledging Dresden (and the supporting cast) as generally incompetent, while suggesting that a Wizard 20 is somehow playing unfair by knowing spells and spending their WBL? It really feels like you've set the bar on human competence far lower than I have.


Yeah, Harry does have a habit of rushing in sometimes instead of planning out all possible avenues of attack. That's because it's more exciting to read about action than it is to read pages of planning. Similarly, Harry is aware that he has a hard time saying no to a pretty face. That's a classic trope of detective fiction, and shouldn't be a surprise that it's deeply embedded in his DNA. At least if the books are an easy read, it should be easy to reach the point where the author found his stride.

Also, nobody is saying that Harry is modeled off of Sherlock Holmes. Nor are they saying that Harry is anywhere near the top of the food chain. He's a known quantity, and on the side of good if you want to reach out to the good guys. He still took a while to outgrow some of his juvenile traits, and still hasn't with others. Again, those happen because they make for more interesting stories.

As to the power levels at play, though, Harry is nowhere near the top of the food chain. Towards the top, we have an archangel who matter of factly states that he could annihilate galaxies. So to answer your questions for two of your characters; a good-natured, epic level academic would probably meet some of the power players. They'd either help send you back home if possible, or send you off to explore the depths of the nevernever (the setting's equivalent of the various planes) otherwise. Your lich who tried spreading necrotic cysts around would emphatically not be human, and would be violating free will all over the place. Free will is a big thing in the setting. Making messes all over the place while being an undead mockery of life would quickly get you spotted by a very big boy, who would hit you with the equivalent of the Life and Death (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/divine/divineAbilitiesFeats.htm#lifeAndDeath) power. Your spell loadout probably won't help you with that.

I don't care about power or Sherlock Holmes, I care about believable, competent characters. Harry is neither.

It's not just Harry, though - all the characters in the book aren't characters - they're narrative elements in convenient idiot ball form, designed to push the story and elicit certain responses from the reader. Or, at least, that's my take on it.

For the Lich - do the powers that be get involved with stopping the Black Council, or any other manipulators (assuming such exist)?

[Anymage]

Better to not invoke mention of 3.5 deity abilities, since char-op tends to scoff at them.

I think you're overestimating the amount of direct involvement the archangels take. Even if the interloping wizard was considered an Outsider, the breakthrough of a discreet entity or entities still seems to be an entirely mortal and faerie problem.

I don't think there's actually much question that a theoretical 3.5 wizard 20 could take whatever power they wanted if hooked into the Dresdenverse under these conditions, since the conditions are essentially "no limits do whatever you want," and all they have to do to avoid being swarmed is align themselves with a big enough power player, good or evil. Hence there not being much to say on it.

To "just" a Wiz20? At most, if sending the wizard back to their native reality was a possibility, an archangel or someone on that level might show up to show the wizard where the door back was. That would be part of the story wrap up, though, instead of a divine being automatically slapping down any ideas. He's unlikely to get involved with a wizard who wants to interact with the world, and instead serves as an example of just how high the power level can go.

I was specifically referring to Quertus' lich example who necrotic cysts everything in sight, though. Who would not have any of the baseline protection that being human brings, and would be showing callous disregard for Free Will everywhere it went. At that point something very big is likely to take notice quickly. At the upper ends of the scale, salient divine abilities are the only real way to express the powers they can bring to bear.

Edit to add:
For the Lich - do the powers that be get involved with stopping the Black Council, or any other manipulators (assuming such exist)?

Free Will is an important element of the setting. Humans get to chose between Good and Evil. Black Council members, for all their flaws, are still human. It's possible that the forces of heaven manipulate tiny events to give the forces of Good an edge (there's a short story where Uriel is seen making tiny changes to give people an opportunity to make the right choice), but they don't directly intervene.

However, being a lich (a dead thing whose humanity is long gone), from Outside their reality, who magically destroys the free will of anybody who happens to be convenient ... well, I think I covered that above.

[Quertus]

First thing to point out, Harry Dresden is NOT a good wizard at the start of the series. He's a novice who frequently makes terrible mistakes because he doesn't have much experience. This is a guy who thinks it's a good idea to ask demons for information, doesn't realize he shouldn't break deals with fairies, and doesn't even have the experience to know when to let people with more knowledge solve a problem.

That said, the examples you gave aren't as dumb as they seem, or rather, they make a lot more sense with more information.

Considering that Dreden-verse magic is powered by emotions, it makes complete sense Dresden is reading a novel while in debt. When your mind and emotions are your weapons, not taking efforts to keep them in good condition is just stupid.

Considering it wasn't his brain driving his decisions involving Murphy there and he really didn't want her all that involved to begin with, it's understandable, if still stupid.

Dresden is effectively on Wizard-probation. If the guy shadowing him can find an excuse to kill him, he will. Bringing that stuff around is dangerous because it might convince the guy to kill him before he breaks the laws. While the guy shadowing him isn't quite that stab happy, Dresden doesn't know that yet and won't until it's no longer a concern. Obviously being decapitated would have impacted his plans quite a bit.

Potions in the Dresden Files don't work like D&D potions. The effects aren't consistent and they really aren't all that great. Plus, Dresden doesn't really know how to make useful ones and Bob is far to dangerous to trust 100%.

Dresden isn't a smart fighter, either starting out or later in the series, but it's a mistake to assume he's stupid. Most "dumb" things he does have a reason that just isn't explained at the time. Except when it involves women. Then he's just dumb.

So, in universe, most Wizards spend most of their time "wasting time", so as to be more powerful? If so, then I was mistaken about the reading.

"Their brain isn't in the driver's seat" is not a good argument to convince me that someone is competent.

Nor is "self defense is legal, but we've convinced you that we'll kill you if you're prepared to defend yourself".

I mean, Dresden potions seem better than D&D potions, IMO. Not trusting Bob is an interesting wrinkle, but it still makes Harry out as incompetent for doing so when needing sleep, and not having done so earlier, when he had the materials on hand.

And, again, it's not just Dresden - almost everyone comes off as incompetent in book 1. I understand that real people make mistakes, but even broken clocks are right twice a day.

[Segev]

Nor is "self defense is legal, but we've convinced you that we'll kill you if you're prepared to defend yourself".


The White Council - or at least his Warden - have done a great deal to convince Dresden that self defense is barely legal, and that he's on such thin ice that they're going to assume he's planning to murder somebody if he dares look like he's thinking about needing to defend himself. Whether Dresden is right or wrong, his belief at the time of the first book is that he's in an incredibly unfair position of being told, "we would have liked to have killed you, but you had barely enough political clout on your side to keep you alive on a technicality, and now we're just looking for an excuse."

Put another way, he thinks he's dealing with a corrupt justice system that is only not murdering him because he has one or two people looking out for him, but that the only way the corrupt guys after him are kept at bay is if he makes it so that they couldn't so much as pretend convincingly that they thought he might possibly do something wrong.

[Eldan]

So, in universe, most Wizards spend most of their time "wasting time", so as to be more powerful? If so, then I was mistaken about the reading.

"Their brain isn't in the driver's seat" is not a good argument to convince me that someone is competent.

Nor is "self defense is legal, but we've convinced you that we'll kill you if you're prepared to defend yourself".

I mean, Dresden potions seem better than D&D potions, IMO. Not trusting Bob is an interesting wrinkle, but it still makes Harry out as incompetent for doing so when needing sleep, and not having done so earlier, when he had the materials on hand.

And, again, it's not just Dresden - almost everyone comes off as incompetent in book 1. I understand that real people make mistakes, but even broken clocks are right twice a day.

I wouldn't say wasting time exactly. But things like ritual cleansing and meditation definitely help with rituals. Think of them as giving you rerolls on the skill check needed for rituals, maybe. They reduce the variation of the results. Rituals require a lot of concentration and a big part of a good ritual is being in the calmest possible state of mind. Plus there's mention of some wizards occasionally vanishing for a few months to be in a quiet place by themselves.

On the other hand for evocation, well, that's often a bit more varied anyway, but Dresden knows pretty well that you can throw, say, anger into a fireball.

[Nifft]

Example? Changelings, Winter / Summer Knights. Source of power isn't DF-Wizardry for them, so they aren't handled by the White Council at all.


Dabblers get a warning from the Wardens to stay in line Power source for "drabblers" is DF-Wizardry, so they are handled by the White Council.


Gard is effectively a member of a separate court and I seem to recall something something being said about why she was effectively off the radar Easy question: is her power source DF-Wizardry? It's not.


Edit: upon review, it sounds like you're referring to the RPG rules, which seem to have the councils laws as separate slippery slope mechanics, as in "Lawbreaker." Are any of these more directly supported by examples from the books? Even when the author's involved in the game rules I'd like to think they wouldn't re-align the stories with mechanics created to fill out a game. I am using both the books and the RPG.

Harry's tempted to murder again; only the Blackstaff can actually use magic to murder without getting tainted, and IIRC we see him do exactly that in Changes, and we see the stain of dark magic go into the staff instead of him.

I think Molly's also commented on how she feels tempted to use magic to change minds.

Lawbreaker is a named mechanic in the RPG. It's not exclusive to the RPG, of course, since it's just the name for a thing that came directly from the books.

[Segev]

I was under the impression that the Blackstaff (office holder) was not immune to the taint, but was very carefully chosen to be somebody who could be trusted to handle it and not give in. And Blackstaves who kill too often are usually removed with the polite assumption that they were not losing control yet, but as a safety precaution to prevent even the best and strongest-willed from falling, it is just that he's had too much exposure.

[rmnimoc]

So, in universe, most Wizards spend most of their time "wasting time", so as to be more powerful? If so, then I was mistaken about the reading.

"Their brain isn't in the driver's seat" is not a good argument to convince me that someone is competent.

Nor is "self defense is legal, but we've convinced you that we'll kill you if you're prepared to defend yourself".

I mean, Dresden potions seem better than D&D potions, IMO. Not trusting Bob is an interesting wrinkle, but it still makes Harry out as incompetent for doing so when needing sleep, and not having done so earlier, when he had the materials on hand.

And, again, it's not just Dresden - almost everyone comes off as incompetent in book 1. I understand that real people make mistakes, but even broken clocks are right twice a day.

Probably because everyone you see in book1 is a newb. They're all still little level ones with no experience. Wizards spend time reading largely because emotions help boost them up. There's also the fact that casting spells when in a bad headspace can permanently turn you stupid evil.

Harry, like most P.I.s in novels, becomes stupid when dealing with women, whether it's a human like Murphy and Susan, or a serious threat like Mab, Maeve, or vampires. He gets better later, but he's a fricking idiot about that for quite a while, mostly because so many threats are inhumanly attractive.

He murdered his teacher when he tried to mind control him, but no one believes that second bit. Self defense is okay, so long as you can prove it's self defense and also the judge, jury, and executioner is willing to put the rules over their feelings when they've said to their face that they hate you and want you dead.

Dresden potions go bad in a few days, ingredients are expensive, and nearly all Dresden's potion knowledge has come from either the dude who tried to mind control him or the spirit that was the pet of said dude who was also the spirit pet of the most evil wizard ever. If Dresden has an excuse to not make potions, he won't make them.

The only magic Dresden is good with is Evocation (he's a blaster). He can work Thaumaturgy, but he sucks at it. He can make potions, but that's a whole lot closer to Thaumaturgy than Evocation. The only magic items he's made, by book 1 at least, were made under the supervision of an actual skilled wizard.

[Bronk]

So, if I can get myself declared as something different, the White Council will reascend their death sentence? Good to know.

Basically. To do so, you have to prove that you're a powerful major player though. Jonny Marcone does this a few books in, and he has a vast criminal empire backed up by hiring magical mercenaries, and although he's relatively safe from minor actions of the big players in the Unseelie Accords - going against him is basically like an act of war between countries - he still has problems with outliers. For example, Dresden still messes with him off and on, and he gets attacked by a few angry magical monsters here and there who don't care about the political repercussions of their actions, or feel like they can sweep any problems under the rug along with the bones of their enemies.




No, I'm running 4 different characters through this thought experiment - one (not Quertus) is a Lich.

Quertus is an existing mage, well beyond level 20, but that doesn't actually significantly affect his capabilities (usually*). He is familiar(ish) with modern technology, but would be ticked AF at being trapped, unable to return to his home. His plan of action would be to avoid attracting the mundane attention to his bright red robes and obvious magic that invariably occurs on these annoying artifice worlds (ie, Invisibility at the earliest opportunity), and use his various sights and detects to seek out assistance from the more knowledgeable magical beings in the world to help him get back home. How diplomatic he would be would depend on whether things like Sending were working.

By default, Quertus' spellbooks are kept in extradimensional space. So he would likely have made introductions before the Archive was aware of (some subset of?) the contents of his spellbooks. At that point, things might get interesting (unless he had already been declared as "something different"?).

* by virtue of being "more powerful than the gods, he may find himself immune to many Dresden universe ritual attacks.

The OP specified something along the lines of "assume that if you're smart, Dresden Universe scales up, too". So, I wanted to see what the Dresden Universe would look like if it scaled up. So I added an optimized(ish) Lich, who actively wanted to take over the Dresden Universe (or, well, at least the Wizards, since that's all I was confident existed).

A list of seemingly random abilities later, and I concluded that the Dresden Universe actually does pose a credible threat to even my somewhat optimized Lich. However, if he was subtly Mindraping / Necrotic Tumoring his way through the power structure, I'm not convinced that they'd notice him before it was too late. Or, rather, notice him before he had control of "all the known Wizards", leaving only the unknown Wizards, and everything else to potentially deal with him. Can the "unknown Wizards" actually pull off time travel and planar travel? (I'm assuming that, by dent of sheer numbers, they could survive the crazy of Third-Eyeing their way to the Lich). And, long-game, can prospective Wizards be detected as babies, to Necrotic Tumor them in the crib, before they pose a threat?

So, if I were going to an (at the time mostly) unknown universe, I'd optimize for simplicity - Easy Bake Wizard (ish), Spell Points, enter play knowing (almost) "all the spells", a few items, cash (1gp = $500? Money is my superpower), item creation feats, Sculpt Self, etc. Especially since, by the rules given, we've no use for XP besides spending it. Not terribly familiar with the series, I'd have utilized the one fact* I knew, and, as a great change from my current self, become a gamer, and learned the Dresden Universe RPG rules, hopefully before attracting any attention from the powers that be. Then, (assuming that what I read in the RPG rules + whatever divinations I did said that this was a good idea), hoping that Dresden was a good guy, try to hunt him down, to try to convince him to help me make introductions.

The biggest problem I see is, as one can tell from my post history, I love Mindrape. And the White Council might not look too kindly on this fact. Well, that, and I might meddle in Time. And, apparently, I'd actually want to be involved in the Oblivion War.

* no one has corrected me on this. Then again, no one has confirmed it, either...

My fourth* entry was just "random level 20 mage, no history", and hasn't really seen much discussion.

* well, second, chronologically, just 4th on this particular list.

Sounds cool... I've been thinking of this using your third option, since that seemed to be what the OP was going for. Although, I was also assuming I couldn't level myself up. On the other hand, he did say we could lose and gain levels, so that would be a good way to change things up and gain more spells if I didn't have the right mix.

As for the oblivion war, it's more of a 'fight the elder evils' thing that some of the not always reprehensible monsters take part in. They keep it secret from mortals, because the elder evils gain both power and a greater hold on existence through mortal thought and belief, like a small god in Discworld or, I guess, in DnD.


Segev Stormlord would make himself useful enough to work with, but also would have more than enough willingness to hold entire cities hostage through threats of collateral damage should they come after him. And, as a necromancer, he absolutely could ensure that. Just leaving sleeper minions lying around with orders to rampage if he fails to make a scheduled notice would do it.

Oh man, I hope we're in different parallel dimensions or something!


Example? Dabblers get a warning from the Wardens to stay in line, Gard is effectively a member of a separate court and I seem to recall something something being said about why she was effectively off the radar.

Gard isn't human, she's a Valkyrie working for the punnily named Monoc Securities, lead by Odin.


I agree. These thread never take this kind of question seriously and instead pretend as if the magic will work fine with no drawbacks just like in DnD, and that the person will plan everything perfectly.

That's the entire premise of the thread though, except for the planning part. That's just fun stuff people are adding to the thread, because, I guess, why not?


Which you cant ake, if you mindblank(Protection from Evil yourself beforehand, without ecoming possessed, and so infiltrate them easily....if you just meet Ivy first and ask the simple question of: How can I help?



Playing nice, learning the rules (both the effective planar traits and the social mores), and reaching out to the good guys is an effective option. Maybe not in crapsack worlds where everybody sucks, but luckily the dresdenverse isn't one of them. Your biggest risk going that route is running across one of the other supernatural thingies, making a deal without knowing what you're getting into, and getting sucked into someone else's drama.

It's the people who think that the existing characters are all idiots because they don't act in hyper optimized ways who stand out. Especially when their own plans for hyper-optimized winning the setting have to be revised due to flaws.

That's what I would do too! Seems like the easiest in would be playing nice.


Denarian coins almost certainly count as artifacts, so you get the effects no matter what. The corruption effect isn't mind affecting; denarian demons very pointedly cannot screw with your free will. It's just that the power tends to encourage people to use it towards jerkier ends. You may or may not get a Lash equivalent (depends on the interaction between Mind Blank and artifacts), but the sort of person who wants to win settings will go in whole hog.

Maybe... the coins themselves could be artifacts, but I see the fallen angels trapped within as using mind affecting magic that could be blocked, even with Protection From Evil.



Are you houseruling, now, saying a wizard doesn't get his 2 free spells per level? Or that such a character can't spend his wealth as the books say he can? We're going by rules, not houserules.

I was thinking that this would be a great way, along with losing and gaining levels, to nab any spells you feel are missing from your spellbook.


Sigh. It seems that the Playground is not terribly cohesive in adjudicating the capabilities of the Dresden universe. And, in many cases, lack of memory or rose-tinted glasses prevent them from seeing just how dumbly most of the characters are portrayed. So, apparently, I'll have to read the series for myself to get a good answer for what would happen to my sample characters.

Well, there are rather a lot of books and short stories, even if not many have come out recently. Also, I mentioned before that I considered this to be one of those great series that continually gets better with each book that comes out... that makes it jarring to go back and read the earliest ones sometimes. Long story short, it's hard, for me at least, to remember everything that happens in the novels.

Also, I've looked through the RPG briefly around New Years, but that's it. Sorry!


You want a list?
Dresden wastes his time reading novels when massively in debt.
Pressed for time, Dresden wastes time chatting with and sparring with Murphy.
Paranoid about being killed, Dresden takes the stairs - but doesn't bring any of his combat tools.
And that's just the first chapter. And ignores general things, like "starts with 0 potions in inventory, and is generally bad at thinking ahead".
Murphy, at least, sounds competent so far, being to the point, expending her points as necessary, and repeating critical information.
Should I keep going?

I hear ya, but this is the sort of thing that makes novels fun to read, and make Harry more of a real, fleshed out character who resonates with the reader.

Reading novels is fun, especially since they're the same kind we the reader are currently reading! Murphy is cool. Dresden is headstrong, powerful, but lacking subtlety, and figuring he can blow his way out of most trouble.


First thing to point out, Harry Dresden is NOT a good wizard at the start of the series. He's a novice who frequently makes terrible mistakes because he doesn't have much experience. This is a guy who thinks it's a good idea to ask demons for information, doesn't realize he shouldn't break deals with fairies, and doesn't even have the experience to know when to let people with more knowledge solve a problem.

Agreed! He likes to say that he's been to wizard school, but he's more of a dropout with a GED. He got a crappy yet brutal education, and he's mostly good at things that his secretly evil mentor was grooming him for... blasting. He's gradually gaining more wizard knowledge and techniques through life experience and Bob's tutoring.



Dresden is effectively on Wizard-probation. If the guy shadowing him can find an excuse to kill him, he will. Bringing that stuff around is dangerous because it might convince the guy to kill him before he breaks the laws. While the guy shadowing him isn't quite that stab happy, Dresden doesn't know that yet and won't until it's no longer a concern. Obviously being decapitated would have impacted his plans quite a bit.

Dresden is absolutely on wizard probation! We learn pretty quickly that his mentor was evil, then we learn that Harry killed him with magic, which is a no no. Then we learn that his girlfriend is missing too! They think he killed her as well! Also, something something mind magic (that might have been just what happened to his girlfriend though, it's been a while).

But on top of all that, Harry is A: public, and B: in possession of contraband - Bob. If the Wardens find Bob and realize what he is - basically the living spellbook of the greatest necromancer of all time - he'd be executed in no time. So he's always gotta toe the line as long as he can.



Dresden isn't a smart fighter, either starting out or later in the series, but it's a mistake to assume he's stupid. Most "dumb" things he does have a reason that just isn't explained at the time. Except when it involves women. Then he's just dumb.

He's livin' on the edge! As a protagonist, he needs to shake things up to get things done.



Since I already mentioned them, skipping down to potions... Sure, he has no money, but it's demonstrated that he already has the ingredients. So, in his off months, surely he could have brewed some. Now, depending on their shelf life, keeping potions in stock may be a very bad plan, so I could be wrong about this being dumb. However, could he have sold potions to Wizards with less time on their hands?



Potions in the Dresden Files don't work like D&D potions. The effects aren't consistent and they really aren't all that great. Plus, Dresden doesn't really know how to make useful ones and Bob is far to dangerous to trust 100%.



I mean, Dresden potions seem better than D&D potions, IMO. Not trusting Bob is an interesting wrinkle, but it still makes Harry out as incompetent for doing so when needing sleep, and not having done so earlier, when he had the materials on hand.


Potions are good, but yeah, they're not the same. IIRC, they have shelf lives, so he can't stock up. Plus, they have crazy ingredients, like a babies laughter or caught sunshine, you can't just magic mart some of this stuff.

The other thing is that Harry doesn't really know how to make these things, especially at first, without Bob helping, so some situation will come up, and he'll ask Bob if he can help. Until then, there's no reason to use up ingredients.



I think you're overestimating the amount of direct involvement the archangels take. Even if the interloping wizard was considered an Outsider, the breakthrough of a discreet entity or entities still seems to be an entirely mortal and faerie problem.

I agree... direct involvement is nil. They're all about indirect involvement, though, and they have all kinds of resources, including the protagonists of the series.



For the Lich - do the powers that be get involved with stopping the Black Council, or any other manipulators (assuming such exist)?

I'm sure they would want to, but most of the White Council don't even believe the Black Council exists. The rest are probably actually on the Black Council in secret.


So, in universe, most Wizards spend most of their time "wasting time", so as to be more powerful? If so, then I was mistaken about the reading.


I don't think that's accurate. Unless there's a war on, they go about their business, do wizardy things for themselves, make magic items, continually fortify and refortify their homes (since sunrise weakens that kind of magic).


I was under the impression that the Blackstaff (office holder) was not immune to the taint, but was very carefully chosen to be somebody who could be trusted to handle it and not give in. And Blackstaves who kill too often are usually removed with the polite assumption that they were not losing control yet, but as a safety precaution to prevent even the best and strongest-willed from falling, it is just that he's had too much exposure.

That's how I remember it too... Maybe he's got extra protections, but the Blackstaff is basically the DARPA/Q/Research wing of the forbidden magics. He's the only one allowed to use them at all, at least for the human wizards.

Honestly, so many wizard groups get introduced in the books and short stories that it's weird that we've never heard about them using the same magics all the time or having their own version of the Blacksaff.



Dresden potions go bad in a few days, ingredients are expensive, and nearly all Dresden's potion knowledge has come from either the dude who tried to mind control him or the spirit that was the pet of said dude who was also the spirit pet of the most evil wizard ever. If Dresden has an excuse to not make potions, he won't make them.

That's how I remember it too.



The only magic Dresden is good with is Evocation (he's a blaster). He can work Thaumaturgy, but he sucks at it. He can make potions, but that's a whole lot closer to Thaumaturgy than Evocation. The only magic items he's made, by book 1 at least, were made under the supervision of an actual skilled wizard.

He gets better with time, but all wizards seem to have a knack or affinity to a certain kind of magic, and that's his. He does get better over time, and once he takes on Molly as an apprentice, he gets to effectively put himself through wizard school again in order to be a good teacher.

[Fizban]

Petty? I'm struggling to understand the meaning and/or relevance of the word in context.
It seemed less aggressive than "elitist." Your comment struck a little close to people who will say that poor people are poor because they are stupid and just need to stop being poor, through the suggestion that Dresden should be spending all his time aimed at making money or being crazy prepared. There's a difference between not being in optimized batman mode all the time, and being stupid. Plenty of normal people are smart, and yet live unoptimized lives, because they aren't under any serious threat. Even losing one's place of business and home aren't the kind of things that really push do or die response for most people, not to the extent you desire- not when they still have assets to pawn, friends and family to take them in, enough health to break down and take any job they need to after losing the one they like.


However, by dent of later chapters, where it's shown that he lacks common knowledge of his city, he probably doesn't even read the newspaper before reading novels. But, more to the point, there's things he could be doing while waiting for a job that would be more beneficial (potion brewing) or lucrative (crafts, if nothing else).
. . . Now, depending on their shelf life, keeping potions in stock may be a very bad plan, so I could be wrong about this being dumb. However, could he have sold potions to Wizards with less time on their hands?
I don't feel like looking for the exact common knowledge he doesn't know, but I'm never going to hold lack of knowledge of major city navigation against someone- he's not a taxi driver. Telling people they should be doing "crafts" in their spare time to make money is laughable, if you ask anyone who crafts for money how hard it is. I'm pretty sure the personalized nature of potions is mentioned in that first brewing session, and there aren't enough council wizards for there to actually be a market even if they liked him at this point.


I'm not complaining about him taking the job from Murphy, I'm complaining about the way he talked to Murphy. True, we don't have the full knowledge of their history together as of the first book, let alone the first chapter, but Dresden - who, in chapter 2, talks about how well he knows Murphy - wastes time bantering with her despite both of them being in time crunches. Kids just watched some random cartoon where the idiot main character did just that, presumably as a lesson to not do that - it's not a sign of competence.
There is always time for banter. Stressed people gotta keep from falling apart somehow. Someone else addressed a possible reason for why he started out not packing that I didn't remember, but once again, you don't seem to care that this is a person who hasn't actually been attacked by anything. Taking the stairs is a passive snarky response that you can do even when you're unarmed to feel like you're doing something, it's just a comfort action, not a statement that he has real reason to expect assassins.

while suggesting that a Wizard 20 is somehow playing unfair by knowing spells and spending their WBL? It really feels like you've set the bar on human competence far lower than I have.
I don't care how "fair" the wizard thinks they're playing when the "contest" is rigged, and the wizard is actually double dealing as the DM. See other posts, etc.

I think it's best we stop here on both topics, as neither of us is going to budge.



To "just" a Wiz20? At most, if sending the wizard back to their native reality was a possibility, an archangel or someone on that level might show up to show the wizard where the door back was. That would be part of the story wrap up, though, instead of a divine being automatically slapping down any ideas.
I like that- the 'ol "thanks for helping with this and that just like I planned, now here's what you were looking for k thanks bye."


Changelings, Winter / Summer Knights. Source of power isn't DF-Wizardry for them, so they aren't handled by the White Council at all.
Gotcha.

Easy question: is her power source DF-Wizardry? It's not.
Is is stated what her power source is then? I haven't seen anything definite in the main books. As Bronk said, it's heavily implied she's a Valkyrie, but that doesn't mean a Valkyrie isn't a type of warrior wizard the same way Black Court Vampires are also wizards.


Lawbreaker is a named mechanic in the RPG. It's not exclusive to the RPG, of course, since it's just the name for a thing that came directly from the books.
I don't think it's made anywhere near that explicit in the books, at least not in that order. The laws are there to prohibit doing the type of things that make you fall down the slope, but I never got the impression it was any sort of codified law in the magic itself. Just creeping corruption of the unwary, same as any other evil. I agree with Segev- maybe the RPG gives certain people immunity to certain corruption mechanics, but I don't remember any sign of the Blackstaff being different from anyone else aside from the license to kill in spite of their own laws.

[Bronk]

Is is stated what her power source is then? I haven't seen anything definite in the main books. As Bronk said, it's heavily implied she's a Valkyrie, but that doesn't mean a Valkyrie isn't a type of warrior wizard the same way Black Court Vampires are also wizards.

It's always possible, but if so she's not a human wizard, and I don't remember her using spell magic. Her Valkyrie powers are never super well defined, but she's immortal, super strong and tough, and her main deal is a magic ax.


It would be interesting to see what the deal is with the Nevernever. It's usually described as one big place, with what DnD would think of as different planes just being very far apart. I wonder if, once you get over there, you could just teleport around. It would be interesting to see what heaven and hell looked like, since those have never been explored.

[Eldan]

Closest analogy in D&D is probably the astral plane, with the various outer planes as subdomains. Even closer is the 4th ed Astral Sea, really.

[Nifft]

Is is stated what her power source is then? I haven't seen anything definite in the main books. As Bronk said, it's heavily implied she's a Valkyrie, but that doesn't mean a Valkyrie isn't a type of warrior wizard the same way Black Court Vampires are also wizards. Not sure what you mean about vampires -- they were not the White Council's concern until Harry got them to declare war on the White Council, after which they were -- but they weren't a concern because of their power, but rather because they declared war.

The power sources for gods etc. aren't explained in the books I've read. I think the RPG would put Gard under Sponsored Magic.

Stuff like the mortals re-made by Fomorians would presumably also be Sponsored (if it gave them magic) or maybe just supernatural perks which cost some Refresh.



I don't think it's made anywhere near that explicit in the books, at least not in that order. The laws are there to prohibit doing the type of things that make you fall down the slope, but I never got the impression it was any sort of codified law in the magic itself. Just creeping corruption of the unwary, same as any other evil. I agree with Segev- maybe the RPG gives certain people immunity to certain corruption mechanics, but I don't remember any sign of the Blackstaff being different from anyone else aside from the license to kill in spite of their own laws. Jim Butcher is listed as an author for the RPG. The RPG's city-building method is Jim's own book-plot brainstorming method. The spoilers in the RPG book, and the whole RPG book itself, were Jim-approved.

I have cited events in the books which seem to support the RPG's explicit mechanic, but the RPG's mechanics really are from the same universe and by the same author, so they're rather close to canon (albeit in a different media). It's not reasonable to discount the things in the RPG.

I've given you an explicit Jim-written & Jim-approved RPG mechanic name. I've given you a scene where the Blackstaff itself (the object, not the office nor the office-holder) absorbed the repercussions of some heavy death-magic. Notably neither your opinion nor the one you agree with seem to be supported by text at all, so you're not leaving me with much to engage in terms of falsifying your claims.

So... give me a scene from a book which supports your opinion.

[Segev]

Valkyries are very clearly part of Odin's ... I'll call it a "court," though it doesn't have the same meaning as "Summer Court" or "Winter Court" does. Still, they're empowered by him, or by the same source he is. They're not human.


And, yeah, generally, unless you're sure he's not feeling the need to set up contingencies holding hostages against "the good guys," you don't want to be too near Segev Stormlord. He's a very not-nice individual. However, as long as "the good guys" are willing to treat fairly with him, he's usually willing to work around their rules rather than confront them. It doesn't take much to keep him from feeling the need to take hostages. He is well aware that "good guys" who are willing to play the "you're evil, so we can do anything we want to you" card are not the sorts to care about hostages, so he isn't going to bother with them.

As to the Darkhallow, no, it doesn't work the same for him. But he's a wizard. He's pretty sure he can find a way to adapt anything that can draw upon tons of ghostly spirits into a power source he CAN utilize. EXP pools for crafting, or minions, or some sort of spell slot pool... he'd figure something useful out.

[Bronk]

Hmm, if we were on the White Council's good side this wouldn't be a problem, but if not, we'd have to be on guard for any Warden that had one of Anastasia Luccio's swords... They've always been described as being able to slice through any enchantment.

[Fizban]

It would be interesting to see what the deal is with the Nevernever. It's usually described as one big place, with what DnD would think of as different planes just being very far apart. I wonder if, once you get over there, you could just teleport around. It would be interesting to see what heaven and hell looked like, since those have never been explored.
Planar cosmology allows for the crossing of planes via physical boundary. You can walk/swim/etc around the entire great wheel if you follow the right path, and there's stuff like the Deep Ethereal/Shadow/etc. The Nevernever falls easily into dnd cosmology if you want it to.


Jim Butcher is listed as an author for the RPG. The RPG's city-building method is Jim's own book-plot brainstorming method. The spoilers in the RPG book, and the whole RPG book itself, were Jim-approved.
RPG does not equal novels. Unless he did specifically say that everything in the RPG mechanics are canon, which you imply with the word "spoiler," in which case I've only less reason to read it since I'd rather find out at the appropriate times and not be thinking of it in terms of game mechanics.

If you're constantly drawing things from the RPG that aren't referenced in the novels as directly as they are in the RPG, expect to continue having people question them- I'd actually prefer a given set of author approved mechanics for any sort of "fair" "crossover" for what it's worth, but it seems most people here are just working off what the remember in the novels, myself obviously included.

[Nifft]

RPG does not equal novels. Unless he did specifically say that everything in the RPG mechanics are canon No, that's a false binary.

Many things in the RPG are drawn directly from the novels.

Some things in the RPG book are new fiction which is exactly as canon as the novels, because Jim says they are (e.g. the short story in the intro section of Your Story, which canonically slots between Small Favor and Turn Coat).

So, at least one part of it is provably canon. I guess by your all-or-nothing mindset, that means the whole RPG must be canon, right?



If you're constantly drawing things from the RPG that aren't referenced in the novels as directly as they are in the RPG, expect to continue having people question them Hah! I wish.

What I've been doing is talking about things from the novels, and using the RPG's terms to describe them, because the RPG terms are more convenient.

What I've got is you jumping down my throat for having the temerity to use the RPG terms at all, and finally in this post I've got you trying to pretend that the novels weren't the source for the thing that the RPG term describes. So yeah, I'd be relatively happier if you actually confined yourself to questioning things that aren't referenced in the novels. It would mean that you'd conceded this point, for example, and that would be just peachy.

[khadgar567]

you guys often forget some things about dresden files rpg which its aspects. the moment you get in dresden verse you have"real life dnd wizard" as aspect allowing you to interact with setting. then lets look at my favorite oc from dresden files rpg aestas raith she just need something like " apprentice to segev stormlord" then its on as she can learn your magic but you can kinda not. learn her charms. and after her getting the basics she can kill you with out to problem.

[GrayDeath]

No, she cant.

As, again, the OP specifically point sout that NOONE (not even the Archive) can learn the other sides magic. Period.

I thought after half a dozen posts clarifying that it would have reached every poster here....

[Segev]

And if you're trying to cross GAME MECHANICS rather than SETTING MECHANICS, no, she can't have an Aspect that makes her Segev Stormlord's apprentice if Segev Stormlord doesn't want apprentices. Also, that doesn't make her a level 20 wizard.

Aspects are fuzzier than d20 mechanics, and take far more GM approval.

[khadgar567]

And if you're trying to cross GAME MECHANICS rather than SETTING MECHANICS, no, she can't have an Aspect that makes her Segev Stormlord's apprentice if Segev Stormlord doesn't want apprentices. Also, that doesn't make her a level 20 wizard.

Aspects are fuzzier than d20 mechanics, and take far more GM approval.
That was example mate if setting wants it can merge with no problem just OP doesnt want the classic headache of wizard teleports to <inseart setting> then becomes head honcho of the setting crap every threat regularly ends with.

[Segev]

That was example mate if setting wants it can merge with no problem just OP doesnt want the classic headache of wizard teleports to <inseart setting> then becomes head honcho of the setting crap every threat regularly ends with.

I didn't see the OP say this. I also don't think they necessarily could or would, but artificially altering the rules so that it's not what the OP spelled out AND it's not "really" a D&D wizard playing by D&D wizard rules seems to be flying in the face of what the OP asked for.

[Anymage]

The RPG was brought up because Jim was active in writing it, so it does illustrate author intent. The conceit of it being an in-universe document (and as such, limited to Harry's knowledge at the time) does mean that it isn't going to spill all the beans about the finer details of power players out there, so it isn't perfect. It's at least as authoritative as the books, though.

A world running on RPG mechanics would be interesting for another thread. (E.G: if we had d20's flat probability curve and 5% grades of granularity.) That's unnecessary here with the dresdenverse already being complex enough.

[Nifft]

The RPG was brought up because Jim was active in writing it, so it does illustrate author intent. The conceit of it being an in-universe document (and as such, limited to Harry's knowledge at the time) does mean that it isn't going to spill all the beans about the finer details of power players out there, so it isn't perfect. It's at least as authoritative as the books, though.

A world running on RPG mechanics would be interesting for another thread. (E.G: if we had d20's flat probability curve and 5% grades of granularity.) That's unnecessary here with the dresdenverse already being complex enough.

The in-character margin note conversations have some fun comparisons between the RPG mechanics and the "real world" (novels), and where the mechanics do or don't model things well.

The RPG is particularly good at info-dumping the world-building stuff that Harry had not yet had a reason to dump in-character.

[Bronk]

I wonder if a simple 'read magic' spell or even an 'identify spell' would be able to decipher the super complex spells that make up Demonreach, or even just the busted rocks on the island?

[Quertus]

I wonder if a simple 'read magic' spell or even an 'identify spell' would be able to decipher the super complex spells that make up Demonreach, or even just the busted rocks on the island?

Read Southern Magic is different from Read Magic. So no.

[Bronk]

Read Southern Magic is different from Read Magic. So no.

I've never heard of that spell and I can't seem to find it on any spell lists, so I'm not sure what the deal with it is. Although, on a second reading of Read Magic, it does say it can decipher magical inscriptions on a thing, no mention of spells that are a thing.

*****

I think the biggest problem I can see with dnd magic and dresdenverse magic interacting with each other is that dnd magic, at its most powerful, deals in absolutes, while dresdenverse magic depends on two things, magical skill and power level. Thing is, power levels ramp up indefinitely, and can be shared and concentrated as well, just like in DBZ. We've seen this with the fey feeding magic through each other into the old Summer Lady to attack Demonreach. If there's a fight, and there's any gap in a dnd wizard's defenses, they're in for a rough time.

[Quertus]

I've never heard of that spell and I can't seem to find it on any spell lists, so I'm not sure what the deal with it is. Although, on a second reading of Read Magic, it does say it can decipher magical inscriptions on a thing, no mention of spells that are a thing.

Oh my aching senility. Seems that was a 2e thing.

[Bronk]

Oh my aching senility. Seems that was a 2e thing.

That's cool!

It works right into my thoughts about this game's DM though! I'm seeing this game as being so confusing because it's really a jumbled up mishmash of older editions with a veneer of 3.5 on top, rather than a 3.5 game that merely uses older ideas (like my games). Basically, my feeling is that the DM never fully switched over, and doesn't realize or doesn't care that it affects the expectations of his players so much.

I had a similar problem, as a player, from the opposite direction, where I and a number of my fellow players who were playing mages in a 3.5 game never seemed to land a spell, after dozens of tries and relatively high DCs! Turns out, the DM was using 4th edition save rules (and badly a that). It was extremely frustrating.

[GrayDeath]

That's cool!

It works right into my thoughts about this game's DM though! I'm seeing this game as being so confusing because it's really a jumbled up mishmash of older editions with a veneer of 3.5 on top, rather than a 3.5 game that merely uses older ideas (like my games). Basically, my feeling is that the DM never fully switched over, and doesn't realize or doesn't care that it affects the expectations of his players so much.

I had a similar problem, as a player, from the opposite direction, where I and a number of my fellow players who were playing mages in a 3.5 game never seemed to land a spell, after dozens of tries and relatively high DCs! Turns out, the DM was using 4th edition save rules (and badly a that). It was extremely frustrating.

OK...but what does that have to do with this Topic?
Probably got the wrong thred, hm? ^^

[Bronk]

OK...but what does that have to do with this Topic?
Probably got the wrong thred, hm? ^^

You're right, thanks! Now then, any thoughts on the warden's blades or protecting yourself from DBZ style pooled raw magic?

[Segev]

You're right, thanks! Now then, any thoughts on the warden's blades or protecting yourself from DBZ style pooled raw magic?

The Warden's Blades are about as absolute as anything gets in Dresdenverse, so the solution for a D&D wizard is "don't get hit by one." Fortunately, most wizards designed by optimizers will have their layered defenses include things that get them the heck out of the way before swinging swords hit them.

[Anymage]

Warden blades are "don't get hit". Which means either playing nice with the white council, keeping your head down, or allying with some other supernatural type and then just not going out of your way to antagonize any wardens. A combat style devoted to staying out of reach should give you the edge if you do happen to throw down, but being strongly warden resistant is not the same as being warden proof.

Pooled magic depends entirely on how you rule power interactions. For simplicity, I'm going to assume that the dresdenverse offers saves as normal, except that a 1 can still succeed or a 20 can still fail if the numbers work out that way. (So that suitably epic beings can autosave against weaker magic based just on their innate save bonuses, and suitably boosted spells can instagib a lesser target.) Whether a D&D wizard retains the D&D rule about 1s and 20s or whether they have dresdenverse rules forced on them is something that will have to be arbitrarily picked. Specific threats can be blocked by a spell designed to protect against that sort of threat. (E.G: Mind Blank protects against any divination or mind-affecting ability used by anything that's not on a godlike power level.) But while a specific, known threat can be safely negated, the limited number of spell slots available means that you have to make tradeoffs between what defenses you want to have up and what you want to be able to proactively do.

[Segev]

Warden blades are "don't get hit". Which means either playing nice with the white council, keeping your head down, or allying with some other supernatural type and then just not going out of your way to antagonize any wardens. A combat style devoted to staying out of reach should give you the edge if you do happen to throw down, but being strongly warden resistant is not the same as being warden proof.

Contingent teleportation and time-manipulation effects, as well as general surprise-negation and immediate-action removal-from-melee, is within the d20 wizard's purview.

[Nifft]

Warden blades are "don't get hit". Which means either playing nice with the white council, keeping your head down, or allying with some other supernatural type and then just not going out of your way to antagonize any wardens. A combat style devoted to staying out of reach should give you the edge if you do happen to throw down, but being strongly warden resistant is not the same as being warden proof.

Playing nice seems pretty easy if they consider you to be using something other than their own type of magic.

They only claim dominion over that specific thing, after all.

[Quertus]

So, I got my hands on a few more books. Read the 2nd and 3rd in a day each, but it's slower going after that. I'm happy to say that the gross incompetence the characters, and skill of the writer, definitely do improve. A few things I've noticed:

Dresden repeatedly says that he's really good at Thaumaturgy, not so much at Evocation. Which is the opposite of what a lot of people have said.

If a wizard suddenly appeared with a spell book, wouldn't the existence of the Archive automatically kinda remove them from the council's authority?

More as I remember.

[Nifft]

So, I got my hands on a few more books. Read the 2nd and 3rd in a day each, but it's slower going after that. I'm happy to say that the gross incompetence the characters, and skill of the writer, definitely do improve. Yeah the writing gets a lot less bad over time. It's never going to be Dostoevsky or Proust but it's certainly less harsh on the eyes as the books progress.


Dresden repeatedly says that he's really good at Thaumaturgy, not so much at Evocation. Which is the opposite of what a lot of people have said. Harry is strong at Evocation, not good at it.


If a wizard suddenly appeared with a spell book, wouldn't the existence of the Archive automatically kinda remove them from the council's authority? The d20 Wizard was never under the council's authority.

[MaxiDuRaritry]

The d20 Wizard was never under the council's authority.Purview, maybe?

[Quertus]

Yeah the writing gets a lot less bad over time. It's never going to be Dostoevsky or Proust but it's certainly less harsh on the eyes as the books progress.

Harry is strong at Evocation, not good at it.

The d20 Wizard was never under the council's authority.

Well, I always considered it an easy read. But I'm still finding errors and stilted language (by the narrator, not just the characters).

Ah. Harry Potter, then?

Well, no, but the consensus seemed to be that they might think so.

[Nifft]

Well, I always considered it an easy read. But I'm still finding errors and stilted language (by the narrator, not just the characters). Sometimes you can see when earlier chapters were written after later chapters.


Ah. Harry Potter, then? They both have potions as a temporary plot device which is swiftly outgrown.


Well, no, but the consensus seemed to be that they might think so. DF Wizards can sense their own type of magic, even in cases where the magic is very weak (for example, when Harry touches the hand of the FBI investigator who "always knows when people are lying"). They should be very quickly able to determine that the d20 caster isn't using their type of magic.

I can't argue with "the consensus" because there's no such poster to quote. But if there's a reason to believe that what I'm saying is incorrect, please post the reason -- not an appeal to popular unfounded opinions.

[Quertus]

I can't argue with "the consensus" because there's no such poster to quote. But if there's a reason to believe that what I'm saying is incorrect, please post the reason -- not an appeal to popular unfounded opinions.

I was neither stating not implying any error on your part. Merely providing you the opportunity to expound upon your position, for the benefit of all, and explaining my reasons for doing so.

[Eldan]

Okay. The thing about Harry's skill with magic.

Evocation: Harry is noted to be in the maybe top 20 or so worldwide for amount of power he can draw on. This was also what his mentor trained him in. He was to be a magical thug and that's what he is. So his evocations are 90% brute force, barely directed. Many books later, he fights alongside some senior wardens and the difference noted is this: they both kill teh same creatures. But Harry does it with a wall of fire as wide as a room that sets countless objects on fire, while the warden does it with a pencil-thin beam of pure force.

Thaumaturgy: Harry is pretty much uniquely skilled at magic that finds things and a decent magical crafter. What holds him back from being a world-class thaumaturgist is that he lacks two things that are vital for rituals: time and resources. The few really large scale thaumaturgies he pulls off are almost all made when he has a few months of downtime between books and he has to channel all his money into them. If someone gave him three years with no threats, a stipend, some skilled craftsmen and a million dollars in raw materials, he could absolutely change the world. But these are noire-ish action novels, so he is continually hounded and broke.

[Anymage]

Well, I always considered it an easy read. But I'm still finding errors and stilted language (by the narrator, not just the characters).

Ah. Harry Potter, then?

If we're being honest, "Ah. Harry Potter, then?" comes close to explaining a lot of Dresden's appeal. Once the series finds its footing, it may not be the deepest bit of literature, but it is fun. I'm thinking of two elements still present in the series now that it eventually outgrew. But you're starting to see the enjoyable bits taking shape even now.

(Specifically, and these are negligible spoilers: Potions become phased out and practically retconned out of existence due to being too plot-coupony, and the refrain that "science is the religion of the modern age" stops. The latter refrain doesn't show up when Storm Front got rewritten as a comic, so should be seen as a case where the author outgrew an earlier habit.)


DF Wizards can sense their own type of magic, even in cases where the magic is very weak (for example, when Harry touches the hand of the FBI investigator who "always knows when people are lying"). They should be very quickly able to determine that the d20 caster isn't using their type of magic.

I can't argue with "the consensus" because there's no such poster to quote. But if there's a reason to believe that what I'm saying is incorrect, please post the reason -- not an appeal to popular unfounded opinions.

You keep saying this. But assuming that the D&D wizard doesn't go for massive hax that invites the attention of something cosmic level - think "just" dropping fireballs in Times Square, or to grab a different fictional entity going all Voldemort in London - the white council is the group closest to humanity and the ones likely to care first. When laws get broken people get hurt, and the idea that nobody would care about people getting hurt sounds like a stretch.

Laws where the D&D wizard could conclusively show that their magic worked differently could probably get a pass. Changing someone's shape with Polymorph wears off while carrying negligible to no effects on their mind, so you're probably cool. Magically killing or enslaving people will hurt them by the very nature of the effects. If you're acting solo, you will inspire people to stop you.

You might make it a huge hassle for the white council by politically attaching yourself to some other supernatural nation, so that attacking you will risk triggering a bunch of treaties and getting many more people involved. That only works by politically binding yourself to one of the other supernatural nations. Which involves political ties to a bunch of other things that range from deeply alien to deeply unpleasant.

[Nifft]

You keep saying this. But assuming that the D&D wizard doesn't go for massive hax that invites the attention of something cosmic level - think "just" dropping fireballs in Times Square, or to grab a different fictional entity going all Voldemort in London - the white council is the group closest to humanity and the ones likely to care first. When laws get broken people get hurt, and the idea that nobody would care about people getting hurt sounds like a stretch. If you're dumb enough to drop fireballs in Times Square, the people and powers who will be coming for you may include the White Council, but you'll have way more trouble on your hands than just them.

At that point it's less about you falling under their purview -- which a D&D Wizard still won't -- and more about you just being a menace who needs to be removed. So don't be that dumb, not even for the sake of making a rhetorical point.

Second, you seem to be conflating Laws and laws. Breaking human law doesn't seem to have any necessary relation to the White Council, and breaking the Laws of Magic canonically will attract their attention even when it's done below the radar. Molly giving her friends strong encouragement to quit taking drugs wasn't a violation of human law, nor was it overt like a fireball, yet the White Council got involved pretty damn quick.

D&D magic would not trigger whatever off-screen detection mechanism the White Council used to sniff out Molly. It's a different thing, with different rules.


You might make it a huge hassle for the white council by politically attaching yourself to some other supernatural nation (...)

Actually I'd prefer to ally with the White Council. Even though D&D magic would fall outside their purview -- which I keep saying, because it keeps being true -- the White Council would make good allies, and great customers. They have power and money, they have local connections and knowledge about the supernatural world which I'd want, and best of all there are plenty of decent people among them.

Furthermore, they're humans punching at inhuman things, often well above their weight class. That's exactly the sort of problem that D&D items can help solve -- it's practically "combat against monsters" after all. Excellent customer base, bulging with money, and they have a problem for which I can sell them solutions. It's a solid basis for a mutually beneficial partnership.

[Quertus]

Some more thoughts as I read through the books:

The Archive claimed to know all written and spoken information.

And I haven't seen a hockey stick yet, so I must have been told wrong / misremembered. But I really thought "modern mage PI with a hockey stick" was the same conversation as "in-world RPG to help teach new Wizards about magic". Sigh. Shows how good my memory is.

[MaxiDuRaritry]

And I haven't seen a hockey stick yet, so I must have been told wrong / misremembered. But I really thought "modern mage PI with a hockey stick" was the same conversation as "in-world RPG to help teach new Wizards about magic". Sigh. Shows how good my memory is.The hockey stick is for when Puck shows up.

Because hockey stick > hockey Puck.

Geddit?

[martixy]

This thread has generally been quite the interesting read.

Base stipulations, defined better
Since the whole situation is poorly defined, I'll define it in a manner I see as fitting and reasonable and go from there:

Appropriate WBL: That's cool.
Planar cosmology: While you may not be able to return to your own prime material, nothing says you're even living there. Making a home on one of the other planes, or your own personal one is perfectly valid.
Magic transparency: Assuming by "learn" here we mean "practice". E.g. for them (and Ivy) our D&D wizard's magic is about as functional and "sensical" as it is for us IRL.
Genre savviness: I would forego this completely. You are plopped in there with 0 knowledge. Might as well call it the far realm at this point.
Competency: I will assume we are using the character's abilities, not my own(which fall dreadfully short of what is an easily attainable 25+ INT for a Wiz20). Emulating that from within this thread may include "Hey, you know that Ivy can..." => "Oh, yea, in that case I'd be eidetic wizard/mind blanked/etc...".
Metanarrative: I am not touching that with a 10-foot pole. Our wizard isn't an NPC in Dresden's own plot. There's no kooky Deus Ex Machina intrusions or external plot mandates. Everyone acts solely from within the bounds of the thusly established universe.



Planar cosmology
There exist 2 approaches based on how we stipulate our planar cosmology works:

Isolation scenario:

You are plopped in there and that is your world now. Planar travel gets you to the Nevernever and any personal demiplanes you create from this point forward(you lose access to the D&D world, including any personal demiplanes). Summonings, etc. from the Monster Manuals can be fiated, as I believe that is in the spirit of the "game".
Primary Modus Operandi in this case would really have nothing to with being a wizard or any other external factors. Most logically it will be finding a way back home from this strange far realm.

Intermediary scenario:

You may no longer have access to the D&D PMP, but the creatures you interact with still do. You generally use very little. Hell, as a wizard 20, I wouldn't even be living on the PMP anymore (probably). This places me in the rather unique position of being the sole intermediary between the cosmology of D&D and this new far realm. That in itself is a cool new life.



Power play
In #2 we retain access to the D&D economy and as Wiz20 can thus further break it in tiny little pieces, to exceed WBL to our heart's content.
In either case, we'd be using some standard precautions to shore up a wizards classic weaknesses (reliance on spellbook, resource depletion, what-have-you).


I shall also assume some modicum of general competence by the power players here and start off by laying low, until more information can be gleaned through divinations and simple observation of the workings of this alien world. Chances are, without knowledge of Ivy, I'd tip her off to my presence sooner rather than later, even if you do all your wizardly studying in your own private plane. And if we're cut off, that will happen either way, since we gotta make us a new plane anyway. How Ivy will react to this is anyone's guess. She does have positive history with Dresden so she might contact him with information about me.
Frankly I don't see much of a threat for a smart, optimized wizard. I would establish myself as neutral party as fast as possible. I'd probably read the Accords and decide to become somewhat of a super-authority on top of them, e.g. create Unseelie Accords v2, which I would enforce. Past that I'm fine with "live and let live". Maybe occasionally intervening just to serve poetic justice or save people from themselves.


The first thing I would do I test the way back. When that works, I will organize an exploration expedition to that new realm. When that preliminary phase is complete I will start building an intelligence network in this new world. Phase 3 establishing business relations and cultural exchange. I would probably not mess with the existing power structures, past setting up a stable foothold in the new world that will allow me to effectively conduct business on both sides. Ironically, as a group, I'd probably set up close working relations with Marcone's outfit, since they have close ties to both the mundane and supernatural aspects of their own world and have been known to be quite efficient and reliable.
Within this scenario there is literally nothing I need to fear of the dresden world. I have escape back and access to the resources of the D&D cosmology. It would be, as they say, a total curbstomp.

[Bronk]

Some more thoughts as I read through the books:

The Archive claimed to know all written and spoken information.

And I haven't seen a hockey stick yet, so I must have been told wrong / misremembered. But I really thought "modern mage PI with a hockey stick" was the same conversation as "in-world RPG to help teach new Wizards about magic". Sigh. Shows how good my memory is.

I don't remember a hockey stick... I remember snowballs and baseballs though.

How far have you gotten in the series? Are you liking it any better, or still meh?

[Quertus]

I don't remember a hockey stick... I remember snowballs and baseballs though.

How far have you gotten in the series? Are you liking it any better, or still meh?

I've met the Archive, that's how far I've gotten through the series. Well, I've finished that book, at this point.

It's difficult for me to explain my opinion of the books. The author continues to find new and inventive ways to irritate me, from idiot balls to logic leaps that I can't follow, Dresden himself feels like a ridiculous combination of Marty Stu meets Everyman, the books stay fairly consistent on the coincidences, but the author has gotten better on the characterization of the characters. At least it no longer feels like everyone exists solely to tell the story. The first book was definitely the worst.

Oddly enough, this has rather endeared the books to me. That is, I've always wanted to write, but I've always been terrible at it (as most anyone who's endured reading my random chapters could tell you). But, seeing that a book / series with as many flaws as Dresden has has actually been published (plus the author's comment in every book about being bad at writing the genre he loves) inspired me to try to write again. Turns out, I'm still bad, but better than I used to be, and better at certain genres than others. And I probably never would have tried again - and certainly not have tried as wide a spectrum of genres - were it not for reading Dresden.

Also, I've gotta give the author credit for continuing to gently touch on topics I can't even finish this sentence about. Although his touch was so light, I'm actually struggling to remember examples. Or maybe that's just because I'm laid up sick today.

[Bronk]

I've met the Archive, that's how far I've gotten through the series. Well, I've finished that book, at this point.

It's difficult for me to explain my opinion of the books. The author continues to find new and inventive ways to irritate me, from idiot balls to logic leaps that I can't follow, Dresden himself feels like a ridiculous combination of Marty Stu meets Everyman, the books stay fairly consistent on the coincidences, but the author has gotten better on the characterization of the characters. At least it no longer feels like everyone exists solely to tell the story. The first book was definitely the worst.

Oddly enough, this has rather endeared the books to me. That is, I've always wanted to write, but I've always been terrible at it (as most anyone who's endured reading my random chapters could tell you). But, seeing that a book / series with as many flaws as Dresden has has actually been published (plus the author's comment in every book about being bad at writing the genre he loves) inspired me to try to write again. Turns out, I'm still bad, but better than I used to be, and better at certain genres than others. And I probably never would have tried again - and certainly not have tried as wide a spectrum of genres - were it not for reading Dresden.

Also, I've gotta give the author credit for continuing to gently touch on topics I can't even finish this sentence about. Although his touch was so light, I'm actually struggling to remember examples. Or maybe that's just because I'm laid up sick today.

That's a neat way of looking at it. I wish you luck in your writing!

[Quertus]

That's a neat way of looking at it. I wish you luck in your writing!

Thanks. It's a race between me and those thousand monkeys to see who writes something that's worth the paper first.

So, in what way do you view the books differently than I do?

[Bronk]

Thanks. It's a race between me and those thousand monkeys to see who writes something that's worth the paper first.

So, in what way do you view the books differently than I do?

Well, I meant it was a neat way of viewing the process of writing and getting published. I know a number of authors trying to get published, some diligently for years, who see plenty of terrible books get published, and who have slowly come to the conclusion that getting picked up by a publisher involves a lot of luck. Whether because they missed a trend, or were trying to fit their book into the wrong genre, or something else, they keep getting turned down (even with some pretty great novels) but they keep trying because they like to write. Who knows what'll happen? They tend to self publish in the meantime.

As for the Dresden Files series, I like the series, and it's one of my favorites. The books have consistently drawn me in, and the world quickly felt real and lived in for me. The characters feel like they're talking naturally, and that pulls me in. The world is fairly consistent, and has great continuity. If something's different, it becomes a new mystery, and I want to discover what's up. Each book builds on the last, and I've enjoyed each book more than the last.

I'm not sure what you mean by idiot balls, but when you mention 'logic leaps I can't follow', I don't see that as a bad thing... I like a level of consistency, but I also don't like being able to easily guess the rest of the book. The leaps of logic feel like revelations to me, and they make me feel like I'm learning about the wizardry of the world alongside Dresden, and feel like he's making them based on a perspective that I can't really share but can enjoy learning about. Especially at first, Dresden is closer to the 'everyman' type, because he's still so new at wizarding... He had a crash course, knows some good tricks, but not only is he still learning and refining his craft, but since he's also an outsider from Wizard society, we get to learn that through his eyes too. Later, Molly, and Butters, the wolves show up so he has someone to explain things to. If there's a mystery, I feel like I'm into the world enough to speculate, come to several plausible conclusions, then be happy to be wrong.

The lack of super defined rules is a plus for those reasons, but also because it ups the rule of cool, and takes DND anger out of the equation. For example, I've enjoyed the Drizz't novels for quite a while, but it's hard to reconcile the prevalent sword battles with DnD mechanics. So, for a long time, Salvatore didn't even try! It helped with the flow of the book, and kept it edition agnostic, but I often thought "Hey, why don't they carry some healing potions or whatever sometimes? They shouldn't be hard to find! And why don't they ever use the magic items they find!" Eventually the 4th edition novels came out. Suddenly it's 'warp step' this and 'dumb potion made from a kit' that, Drizz't puts bracers on his legs which works for some reason, and there was a lengthy subplot about the halfling's weird dagger. Meh. When Dresden blasts someone, I'm glad I'm just thinking 'why not use your other blast?' and not 'that wasn't 6 seconds, and I think he moved twice!' (Maybe I'd feel different if I'd read more of the Dresden RPG.)

Structure-wise, I like that the books skip over boring parts of Dresden's life, and chronicle the interesting parts, which I like. While the books aren't nonstop mindless action, there's always something going on, or we're learning more about a character or world lore. If there's an aside, it isn't disconnected from the story, unlike, say, the Anita Blake Vampire Hunter series, where the author jams in random conversations she had at restaurants with her friends, then tells you about it in the afterword or whatever, then includes the IRL convo in comic form at the end of the book. (Not a fan of the Anita-verse's lack of continuity when it comes to the character's abilities either.)

I like that even though Dresden continually gets stronger and better connected, the series is in 'Always Be Escalating' mode, and his enemies are often one step ahead, ready to take him down a peg. Often, even if he gains the upper hand, his victories reveal more depth to the schemes of his enemies. I like how sometimes he wins through fighting, other times through diplomacy, other times by impressing his enemies and getting them to back off for a while while he takes care of something else. I like finding out more about his mother and what her deal was, the Black Council, the crazy stuff about his birth, all of that building up to...

Who knows? That book of short stories just came out after a 4 year hiatus, and there was only one new story in it. I hope another book comes out at some point! I'm not sure if I hope he has writer's block or his other series are just way more lucrative right now. If he's got writer's block, maybe he'll get over it. I don't see how they could be making that much money, because although I liked the Codex Alera, I tried this new epic fantasy airship ship-who-sang knockoff he's got going on right now and it wasn't for me... but evidently sales from later books in a series usually decline.

Oh, plus Dresden reminds me of my father... minus the magic and lack of a family. It didn't hurt that the physical description is pretty close! Interestingly (to me at least), I got my father into the series, and, knowing that I'll eventually run out of books to give him, I asked what he liked about the series so I could branch out, hopefully in the genre. Turns out it wasn't the genre - he liked how Dresden reminded him of old westerns, where one lone gunslinger would show up, figure out what was up, be right, then save the day. To each their own! I'm just glad our tastes intersected this time.

[Quertus]

It just occurred to me - what about extradimensional spaces? Would a Bag of Holding open to the never-never, for example?

Also, Dresden referred to the contents of his (color) notebook, and Ivy understood exactly what he meant. I therefore suspect that Ivy would know that Quertus' (or any other Wizard's) spell book belonged to them the moment that she was aware of them.

[Bronk]

It just occurred to me - what about extradimensional spaces? Would a Bag of Holding open to the never-never, for example?

Also, Dresden referred to the contents of his (color) notebook, and Ivy understood exactly what he meant. I therefore suspect that Ivy would know that Quertus' (or any other Wizard's) spell book belonged to them the moment that she was aware of them.

I think it wouldn't open on the nevernever (the opening post specified our magic just worked), and I'd be kind of glad for that... You could have a KoDT Bagworld Saga going on before too long! If you did it on purpose though, it could be pretty useful.

I agree with you about Ivy's powers. She's pretty clued in to all human information. Maybe we could get some privacy by wishing ourselves into an elf or some other non human race.

Still reading the novels?

[Quertus]

I think it wouldn't open on the nevernever (the opening post specified our magic just worked), and I'd be kind of glad for that... You could have a KoDT Bagworld Saga going on before too long! If you did it on purpose though, it could be pretty useful.

I agree with you about Ivy's powers. She's pretty clued in to all human information. Maybe we could get some privacy by wishing ourselves into an elf or some other non human race.

Still reading the novels?

Indeed. I've got the books, and I'll soon (maybe this week) be able to answer the question of "what would I do if I knew wtf was going on as of my stated arrival time".

Also, a friend of mine saw me reading the books, and introduced me to the TV series. Which tells me where the "PI with a hockey stick" idea came from.

And it also reminds me of something I'd love to do if given the power in most any world: invisible time-traveling documentary. I'd love to make the TV series right.

[Gnaeus]

It seems to me that the easiest thing to do is just to start crafting items. I don’t see anything that looks as good as simple stat boosters for example. Something as simple as a couple of +2 charisma items could likely radically upgrade even the top level vamp casters and fay.

Hey (Season) Queen. I’ll make you better at every single thing you do, in exchange for 500 years (my perspective) of your protection and a favor to be determined later.

[MaxiDuRaritry]

Hey (Season) Queen. I’ll make you better at every single thing you do, in exchange for 500 years (my perspective) of your protection and a favor to be determined later.Eeeeh. What if she just tosses you in a cell in a place where time runs extremely slowly for you for the next five centuries?

You need to work on your (rules)lawyering skill.

[Quertus]

Hey (Season) Queen. I’ll make you better at every single thing you do,

Also, there no guarantee that their casting is (stat)-based, is there?

[khadgar567]

Also, there no guarantee that their casting is (stat)-based, is there?
Well kinda stat based you have to stats responsible for casting side of dresden series thaumteurgy and evocation are resğonsible from how long you need to chant to summon imp and how powerfull that fireball realy is.

[Gnaeus]

Eeeeh. What if she just tosses you in a cell in a place where time runs extremely slowly for you for the next five centuries?

You need to work on your (rules)lawyering skill.

Yeah. Like I’m going to show the details of my contract to YOU. Do your own homework.

[Quertus]

Well kinda stat based you have to stats responsible for casting side of dresden series thaumteurgy and evocation are resğonsible from how long you need to chant to summon imp and how powerfull that fireball realy is.

... So, custom items, that pump, not Intelligence / Wisdom / Charisma, but Evocation / Thaumaturgy? More like a Caster Level boosting item? Hmmm... Dresden noticed when he got boosts to his magic, which means that there's clearly precedent, and that it's noticeable, so sounds plausible. May require some custom spell research, and definitely requires an understanding of their magic.

[khadgar567]

... So, custom items, that pump, not Intelligence / Wisdom / Charisma, but Evocation / Thaumaturgy? More like a Caster Level boosting item? Hmmm... Dresden noticed when he got boosts to his magic, which means that there's clearly precedent, and that it's noticeable, so sounds plausible. May require some custom spell research, and definitely requires an understanding of their magic.
well you do need special tools to cast/ boost dresden magic but you need to build it your self as harry's staff and blasting rod, molly's wands all work for their specific owners. the boost harry gainened called sponsored magic in dresden rpg and its more akin to what warlock uses in D&D. so quertus cant give molly a crafted trinket to boost her abilities.

[Quertus]

well you do need special tools to cast/ boost dresden magic but you need to build it your self as harry's staff and blasting rod, molly's wands all work for their specific owners. the boost harry gainened called sponsored magic in dresden rpg and its more akin to what warlock uses in D&D. so quertus cant give molly a crafted trinket to boost her abilities.

Can't? Oh, I don't know about that. But he probably wouldn't bother unless it was a required cost for getting him home. I was just evaluating this:



It seems to me that the easiest thing to do is just to start crafting items. I don’t see anything that looks as good as simple stat boosters for example. Something as simple as a couple of +2 charisma items could likely radically upgrade even the top level vamp casters and fay.

Hey (Season) Queen. I’ll make you better at every single thing you do, in exchange for 500 years (my perspective) of your protection and a favor to be determined later.

But, sure, WWQD? Hmmm... Dresden Wizards have shown the ability to channel all kinds of power, from angelic or demonic to the fury of nature itself. Most likely, Quertus would investigate how this works, and, based on what I've read, it sounds like he'd do something crazy, like lay lines (get it?) through the never-never to channel various forces (storms, magma, love, hate, whatever) to a central battery, to be distributed to attuned foci according to the bearer's will. And, to prevent latency issues, the foci should probably store power, not entirely unlike Dresden's kinetic foci (the cheapest version of would just passively store energy, and skip the battery and lines entirely). More importantly, the foci would be designed to insulate the bearer from the negative effects of channeling the energy.

Or, at least, that's my first thought for WWQD.

My second thought is to copy the powers of two characters, who were immune to magic, and ate magic. Have the focus powered additionally or entirely by consuming incoming energy - defense to grant offense. Quertus would have to design a safe overflow mechanism to prevent excessive incoming energy from overloading the battery and damaging the focus, of course.

Realistically, Quertus could fairly easily build something to absorb magic, plus most physical energies, as well. And he's already built items to store such absorbed energies. He'd prefer to have some help with the step of converting them into something useful to boost other's magic, or not letting them kill the bearer in the process, but, with a little trial and error, I'm sure he'd manage eventually. The overflow feature, and central distribution Nexus, are well within Quertus' experience. Although using a satellite may be easier than running power lines through the never-never.

But, again, this isn't something Quertus would just volunteer to do.

EDIT: channeling emotions is outside Quertus' experience, but, with enough research, not outside his capabilities.

EDIT 2: hmmm... I, given the power of a Wizard 20, might consider doing something like this, for the very few characters is trust. But I lack the experience to feel confident of my success.

[Gnaeus]

... So, custom items, that pump, not Intelligence / Wisdom / Charisma, but Evocation / Thaumaturgy? More like a Caster Level boosting item? Hmmm... Dresden noticed when he got boosts to his magic, which means that there's clearly precedent, and that it's noticeable, so sounds plausible. May require some custom spell research, and definitely requires an understanding of their magic.

I think that’s splitting hairs. I do think in any reasonable transparency something like an Ioun Stone could boost their casting power even if there isn’t a caster level per se. But even aside from that Dresden’s casting seems to be Int based (trying to figure out the correct way to target something’s name or weaknesses. Trying to figure out words (pseudo latin) to control his spells. (So linguistics, so Int)) Fairy glamour and vamp powers appear to be normally charisma based. Etc. I don’t know clearly that michael’s power is Wis based. But I’m not sure it isn’t, since wisdom seems to cover ones general connection with the divine.

[Segev]

I don’t know clearly that michael’s power is Wis based. But I’m not sure it isn’t, since wisdom seems to cover ones general connection with the divine.

Wisdom is also tied to willpower and faith. And in general, I think Micheal is a pretty wise man.

[khadgar567]

I think that’s splitting hairs. I do think in any reasonable transparency something like an Ioun Stone could boost their casting power even if there isn’t a caster level per se. But even aside from that Dresden’s casting seems to be Int based (trying to figure out the correct way to target something’s name or weaknesses. Trying to figure out words (pseudo latin) to control his spells. (So linguistics, so Int)) Fairy glamour and vamp powers appear to be normally charisma based. Etc. I don’t know clearly that michael’s power is Wis based. But I’m not sure it isn’t, since wisdom seems to cover ones general connection with the divine.
let me correct you there mate dresden magic not use clasical hermetic way to use similar chants to pull similar effects each dresden mage needs his or her own magic works to trigger the magic they use harry prefers latin as its kinda easier him to shift the wizard classic mindset he needs while molly uses Chinese and other wizards use other languages because it use to insulate the emotions from casting and if you read the book harry casts fuego( his go to spell ) with regular english while burning with rage thus he eats decent backlash from it. you can say they use linguistics as focus but considering one random dresden mage can you use fus rodah to sumon balrog while other use to perform telekinesis there is kinda not much intelligence used on regular wizard sense.

[Bronk]

Using items to boost local wizard's power sounds like a good idea...

I would try an ioun stone for +1 caster level, but I'd also, considering wardens train in physical combat as well, offer an item that granted the 'Practiced Spellcaster' feat, to offset up to +4 caster levels lost.

That would be power based on their book learning. They also get more powerful with age... almost like a dragon. You could offer them curses to age them up a bit for a power boost.

[MaxiDuRaritry]

There are plenty of services you could offer. Heck, offer them a permanent polymorph any object. Allow a human to become an immortal elan, or a nigh-immortal dragon, or whatever else they want. I'm sure at least some would jump at that, especially if you could also give them a bauble that would disguise them as human (or whatever) whenever they activate it.

[Quertus]

I think that’s splitting hairs. I do think in any reasonable transparency something like an Ioun Stone could boost their casting power even if there isn’t a caster level per se. But even aside from that Dresden’s casting seems to be Int based (trying to figure out the correct way to target something’s name or weaknesses. Trying to figure out words (pseudo latin) to control his spells. (So linguistics, so Int)) Fairy glamour and vamp powers appear to be normally charisma based. Etc. I don’t know clearly that michael’s power is Wis based. But I’m not sure it isn’t, since wisdom seems to cover ones general connection with the divine.

Splitting hairs? I thought that the Playground was the home of optimized pedantry. :smalltongue:

If you give a Charisma boost to a Paladin, it pumps his saving throws, to a Sorcerer, it boosts their spells, but does not give either of these benefits to a Wizard. Transparency doesn't have to mean giving similar effects to dissimilar things.

Really, if anything, I think that boosting Wisdom would give Dresden universe casters the most benefit, as their effects seem to care about willpower. And perhaps boosting Constitution, as their effects seem to care about their bodies.

[Quertus]

So, as of the end of Changes...

The biggest change is that my aggro-Lich would probably, thanks to his Divinations, be trying to fill in the power void left by the demise of the Red Court.

If I knew what was going on going in... Well, about 1 GP of my WBL would be owning the complete series, and wiring a note to Ivy asking for cliff notes, reading as fast as I could otherwise, afraid that the fey, possibly even the fairy godmother, was responsible for the hit (EDIT: having started on the next book, I now also suspect the potential of a time-traveling Dresden of arranging the hit, just to produce a combat ghost for the good guys - yeah, I don't trust anyone), and, from what I've read here, knowing that there were things that I'd want deal with. Honestly, Teleport Through Time, spell research to have some way to help out with the last scene... Although who knows what butterfly effect that might have on the world... Ivy seemed afraid to interfere... So, again, it depends on if Ivy chose to enlighten me before I did something stupid.

From what I've read, based on Quertus" search parameters, it sounds like Quertus would be most likely to encounter the random non-council Wizards first, who I suspect could and would direct him on to the White Council, who... I'm not sure if their Soul Gaze would penetrate Mind Blank. Either way, I suspect he'd be roped into helping them to secure their help getting home.

If Quertus knew the contents of the books, what he'd be most interested in - aside from their foreign magic system, of course - is Toot-Toot's growth.

[Bronk]

If Quertus knew the contents of the books, what he'd be most interested in - aside from their foreign magic system, of course - is Toot-Toot's growth.

Right? I've always been interested in small characters. For example, my favorite Earthdawn characters out of all the races are the Windlings. Small, presumably stealthy, able to do small, intricate things. Extrapolating their danger from the various game worlds -where they're often sub par in a physical battle - to the real world is fun... They're small so you'd expect their attacks to be weak, but how would you go about defending against a super fast, super agile, flying person who can stab you right in the jugular with an exacto knife? Or sending a Discworld Nac Mac Feegle on a space mission - less food, less air, smaller ship...

Toots is cool... he starts out at 6 inches, then gets bigger. What's their deal? How small do they start? Was he originally like his friend Elidee, the size of an ant, or is she her own thing? She might be, because she seems less spastic. So she's super tiny, basically fine sized, but just as mentally with it as everyone else. She'd be the perfect spy, or the perfect assassin who you'd only have a possibility of detecting when she's already climbed into your ear and started stabbing from the inside of your skull.

As for the size changing thing, it would be neat to figure out how that worked, which kind of fae it worked for, if it could be reversed, and if there's a limit. Is it magical power that does it, or some kind of recognition based system? Do they just get bigger, or do they eventually pop into the form of a more powerful fae, like a pokemon (or a devil, in 3.5)? Fascinating.

(Quertus the PC sounds like the kind of guy who could easily figure this out... Pixies seem fairly easy to come by, considering the White Court uses them as street lights, and as a lich you'd expect him to be free of pesky morals.)

[Segev]

If it's a straight port of Segev, he'd be working on improving his undead control to start enslaving the Black Court. And investigating whether performing the Darkhallow would let him create epic magic items and/or artifacts, assuming it didn't translate directly to some sort of CL boost.

[Quertus]

As for the size changing thing, it would be neat to figure out how that worked, which kind of fae it worked for, if it could be reversed, and if there's a limit. Is it magical power that does it, or some kind of recognition based system? Do they just get bigger, or do they eventually pop into the form of a more powerful fae, like a pokemon (or a devil, in 3.5)? Fascinating.

(Quertus the PC sounds like the kind of guy who could easily figure this out... Pixies seem fairly easy to come by, considering the White Court uses them as street lights, and as a lich you'd expect him to be free of pesky morals.)

Quertus is not a Lich. The aggro Lich (who was one of four characters I used to evaluate this topic) wouldn't care about Toot-Toot or his growth. Myself, I'd have my theories, but I'm not really into field research the way Quertus is, so "me plus the powers of a 20th level Wizard" would probably never know the truth.

My thought is, Toot-Toot's physical growth mirrors his spiritual growth, which may be caused, not by age or any such, but by... recognition. Legend. As his status and legend grow, he just naturally... grows.

However, another theory, based on the Dresden universe metaphysics so far, is that, like with acts of intimacy, perhaps Dresden's soul merges a bit with Toot-Toot's as they interact. Perhaps, even, the blood that is now lacking in their exchanges insulated Harry from such interconnection.

Or maybe it's the pizza. Or what it represents. Or maybe it's his ego growing, by actions, by praise, by trust, whatever. Or maybe it's some combination of factors.

And perhaps some day, Toot-Toot will, yes, like Devils, advance to a different level. Toot-Toot the Sidhe noble - now there's a thought.

Quertus would use his existing array of information-gathering dwoemers, or, failing that, invent custom new one to measure whatever Toot-Toot gains, and determine exactly when he gains (and has gained, if necessary, because time travel is a thing) that something, to better understand his growth.

[Quertus]

OK, now that I've read most of the books, and can give the "what would I do if I kinda knew what was going on" answer. Which I can't really say without it being at least somewhat full of spoilers.

Well, clearly, I can't get Dresden's help in the prescribed time frame. So that plan is out. :smallfrown: I'll just have to hope that the White Council has better things to do than harass me.

So, call me crazy, but, from what I've read, I would want to develop custom spells to allow me to, with a small helping of going back in time, transform Cowl's attacks from fatal to merely displacing Lash. I would "resurrect" her in the future, in a mortal body, and let her meet Dresden sometime after the birth of their child. And she would have at-least-Mindrape-level prohibitions about things like rejoining with Lasciel (not that she should want to, but I'd remove that (suicidal) temptation of power).

I would want to exterminate the fomor* more thoroughly than Dresden did the Red Court. :smallfurious: I might even be willing to use a highly modified but similar ritual. 2e had a similar spell, but much weaker than the Bloodline Curse ritual - I would be willing to investigate how to use their power source (mass sacrifice (of them)) to power a spell that my researched (2e-based) spell would then guide and use to target the genocidal energy. However, I wouldn't want anyone to usurp the target (:smalleek:), so I'd want to find some way to build that in from the beginning.

But, in the short term? I would probably try to work for Baron Marcone, in a hopefully highly lucrative "consulting" level, rather than as hired muscle. I'd try to explain that, at some point, I'm going to Time Travel, to try to make things better, and, while I'll happily take his input on that, it may, from his perspective, simply mean that I, at some point, just vanish. So (despite this sounding suicidal), I'd try to leave him better off even if I vanish, rather than dependent on me. Leaving behind some spellcasting simulacra, which I order to serve him faithfully as my last act before Teleporting Through Time would probably be the simplest implementation of this.

So, from my PoV, it would be... Work for Marcone**, if possible. Research spells (possibly including a "Teleport Through Time with Save Point(s)"). Then Teleport Through Time, collect Lash, Teleport Through Time, prep Lash, "resurrect" Lash, capture Fomor, sacrifice Fomor, exterminate Fomor. Spend XP on items, sculpt self, whatever. Teleport Through Time, return to Marcone the next day as though nothing had happened.

And, yes, this still leaves a power vacuum. If divinations indicate that something bad will just take the Fomor's place, well, sounds like a job for Teleport Through Time and Alliance(?) with Marcone to allow me to install the lesser of infinite evils.

From what I've read, I'm uncertain if I'd bother trying to prevent Molly's fate. Or how to attempt to do so without running afoul of Demonreach. So, unless more books come out / divinations indicate bad stuff here, I guess I'd sadly leave things as-is on that front.

However, it might be tremendously fun to try to create my own version of Demonreach. Just, you know, traveling to the future to collect muggle cloning technology to create whole armies of mega-powered unicorns and angels (or whatever "good" creatures I can manage), and then entrap them to create a "militant good" node seems... kinda evil. And useless to me, personally. Unless I can use it with help (say, from Lash) to exterminate the Fomor.

Also, from what I've read, I think that the character I'd like the most is probably the Archive. But, apparently, acting on that, trying to meet and hoping to befriend her is apparently one of the potentially worst things to do to her, so... like with all actions I'd want to take, divinations and researched save points would be rather important.

I agree with those who advise talking to Michael. And, personally, I'd be more interested in making his life better than Harry's. Just saying. Also, it'd probably be less work to help him out with a "reading light" than fixing what's broken in Harry's existence. I just hope I don't run afoul of his defenders in the process of trying to have a chat.

*Admittedly, I'm a little confused about which race is the fomor, so I may actually want to perform several genocidal rituals. Yeah, you probably don't have to worry about alignment issues any more when one genocide just isn't enough. :smallbiggrin:
** I'm still working on whether my "audition" should involve anything more than just stopping by for a friendly chat.

I may try later to give my adjudication of how my original 3-4 plans would have fared for y'all to comment on.

[Bronk]

OK, now that I've read most of the books, and can give the "what would I do if I kinda knew what was going on" answer. Which I can't really say without it being at least somewhat full of spoilers.

Well, clearly, I can't get Dresden's help in the prescribed time frame. So that plan is out. :smallfrown: I'll just have to hope that the White Council has better things to do than harass me.

So, call me crazy, but, from what I've read, I would want to develop custom spells to allow me to, with a small helping of going back in time, transform Cowl's attacks from fatal to merely displacing Lash. I would "resurrect" her in the future, in a mortal body, and let her meet Dresden sometime after the birth of their child. And she would have at-least-Mindrape-level prohibitions about things like rejoining with Lasciel (not that she should want to, but I'd remove that (suicidal) temptation of power).

I would want to exterminate the fomor* more thoroughly than Dresden did the Red Court. :smallfurious: I might even be willing to use a highly modified but similar ritual. 2e had a similar spell, but much weaker than the Bloodline Curse ritual - I would be willing to investigate how to use their power source (mass sacrifice (of them)) to power a spell that my researched (2e-based) spell would then guide and use to target the genocidal energy. However, I wouldn't want anyone to usurp the target (:smalleek:), so I'd want to find some way to build that in from the beginning.

But, in the short term? I would probably try to work for Baron Marcone, in a hopefully highly lucrative "consulting" level, rather than as hired muscle. I'd try to explain that, at some point, I'm going to Time Travel, to try to make things better, and, while I'll happily take his input on that, it may, from his perspective, simply mean that I, at some point, just vanish. So (despite this sounding suicidal), I'd try to leave him better off even if I vanish, rather than dependent on me. Leaving behind some spellcasting simulacra, which I order to serve him faithfully as my last act before Teleporting Through Time would probably be the simplest implementation of this.

So, from my PoV, it would be... Work for Marcone**, if possible. Research spells (possibly including a "Teleport Through Time with Save Point(s)"). Then Teleport Through Time, collect Lash, Teleport Through Time, prep Lash, "resurrect" Lash, capture Fomor, sacrifice Fomor, exterminate Fomor. Spend XP on items, sculpt self, whatever. Teleport Through Time, return to Marcone the next day as though nothing had happened.

And, yes, this still leaves a power vacuum. If divinations indicate that something bad will just take the Fomor's place, well, sounds like a job for Teleport Through Time and Alliance(?) with Marcone to allow me to install the lesser of infinite evils.

From what I've read, I'm uncertain if I'd bother trying to prevent Molly's fate. Or how to attempt to do so without running afoul of Demonreach. So, unless more books come out / divinations indicate bad stuff here, I guess I'd sadly leave things as-is on that front.

However, it might be tremendously fun to try to create my own version of Demonreach. Just, you know, traveling to the future to collect muggle cloning technology to create whole armies of mega-powered unicorns and angels (or whatever "good" creatures I can manage), and then entrap them to create a "militant good" node seems... kinda evil. And useless to me, personally. Unless I can use it with help (say, from Lash) to exterminate the Fomor.

Also, from what I've read, I think that the character I'd like the most is probably the Archive. But, apparently, acting on that, trying to meet and hoping to befriend her is apparently one of the potentially worst things to do to her, so... like with all actions I'd want to take, divinations and researched save points would be rather important.

I agree with those who advise talking to Michael. And, personally, I'd be more interested in making his life better than Harry's. Just saying. Also, it'd probably be less work to help him out with a "reading light" than fixing what's broken in Harry's existence. I just hope I don't run afoul of his defenders in the process of trying to have a chat.

*Admittedly, I'm a little confused about which race is the fomor, so I may actually want to perform several genocidal rituals. Yeah, you probably don't have to worry about alignment issues any more when one genocide just isn't enough. :smallbiggrin:
** I'm still working on whether my "audition" should involve anything more than just stopping by for a friendly chat.

I may try later to give my adjudication of how my original 3-4 plans would have fared for y'all to comment on.

Interesting! I wonder what a mortal body for Lash would look like. Would it look human? Would you try to force he into a human body? Or would she naturally gravitate to a version of her angelic form, or perhaps a information spirit like Bones?

Quertus might want to hold off on the genocide until after talking to Michael though, just in case, since he can smell evil. Maybe call first and stay outside his yard's gate on the first visit until invited in if you're worried about being ejected by the house's angelic security...

I agree, Marcone seems like the best contact for a morally questionable human with plenty of personal protections!